WCW did a lot of things right, especially during the Monday Night Wars, but looking back, there are more things the promotion did wrong. From over pushing the nWo to questionable creative decisions to nonsensical title changes, many things drove fans away and ended up putting the company out of business.
Another big complaint from fans is that there was so much emphasis on the big names in the company like Hulk Hogan, Kevin Nash, and Scott Hall that there was little concern in developing the rest of the talent on the roster and positioning WCW into a company that could succeed in the future.
10 Alex Wright
Fans hated Alex Wright from the outset, and WCW really dropped the ball on how to develop him in response. It seems almost hard to believe that Wright was only 19 when he signed with WCW after making some waves in Germany and Japan. However, after debuting him as a dancing cruiserweight, fans didn't like the gimmick.
Alex Wright ended up getting pushed and then disappearing only to return with a new heel gimmick and disappearing again, only to come back as the dancing guy again, this time with perennial jobber Disco Inferno. Wright was never as successful as he could have been.
9 Glacier
The worst thing that could have happened to Ray Lloyd was debuting in WCW as Glacier. The entire gimmick was destined to fail, with him arriving as a loose tie-in with the Mortal Kombat videogame series with villains like Mortis and Wrath following.
However, his entire debut was a mess, with an overlong series of teases and then a delayed first appearance. By the time he arrived, no one cared, and WCW did nothing to push him, throwing him into the mid-card and eventually just giving up on the gimmick and the wrestler.
8 Scott Norton
Scott Norton was a bad man. In Japan, he was one of the toughest and rugged wrestlers, a man who earned the respect of that country's wrestling fans and who proved every time he stepped into the ring that he was someone who could hurt someone.
In WCW, he was put into a tag team with Ice-Train and later joined the nWo as a forgotten member. He did almost nothing but interfere for more successful members of the faction and, for a short time, team up with Buff Bagwell. In Japan, he reached the top as the IWGP Heavyweight Champion.
7 Brad Armstrong
Brad Armstrong was a second-generation star, the son of the legendary Bullet Bob Armstrong. He was arguably the best wrestler of all of Armstrong's sons, including Steve, Scott, and Brian. However, he was not the most successful and is not even as famous as his referee brother.
Of course, Road Dogg was the most successful Armstrong brother, although in no way a good wrestler. Scott Armstrong has been a referee for WWE for over a decade. On the other hand, Brad was successful in the territories, and then WCW decided to saddle him with gimmicks like Badstreet, Arachnaman, and Candyman, jobbing him out to everyone.
6 Chris Kanyon
When Chris Kanyon debuted in WCW, he was thrown into a hole immediately as Mortis, Glacier's nemesis. However, there was a big difference between those two men. Kanyon was excellent in the ring.
He could execute innovative moves, and as much as Mike Tenay tried to put him over for those moves, he never got a chance to move up the roster. Chris Kanyon's most successful moment came in DDP's Jersey Triad, but he was still the third wheel there.
5 Mike Awesome
Mike Awesome was one of the best big men to work in the '90s and could do things most giants couldn't. He was the ECW World Champion and was booked as an unstoppable force there, but he wanted more money or exposure and signed with WCW while still the ECW Champion.
Awesome arrived in WCW with a lot of promise and ended up with two gimmicks -- the Fat Chick Thrilla and That '70s Guy -- and he never recovered.
4 Buff Bagwell
Buff Bagwell was one of the prize pupils from WCW's Power Plant training center. He debuted as Marcus Alexander Bagwell, a babyface who eventually formed a tag team with Scotty Riggs called American Males. He slowly moved up the roster until he came into his own as Buff Bagwell.
The problem is that Buff might have loved himself more than anyone else did. He seemed to stagnate when put beside bigger stars like Scott Steiner and the nWo. He never reached the level of success WCW might have hoped, and when WWE bought the company, he wrestled one match, soured everyone there, and WWE quickly fired Buff.
3 Terry Taylor
It seems almost hard to believe that Terry Taylor was, at one time, touted as the next Nature Boy Ric Flair. That was when Taylor worked in Mid-South Wrestling, where Cowboy Bill Watts knew how to push guys to their strengths.
However, Taylor seemed to have an attitude that made it hard for him to achieve long-term success, shown when he arrived in WCW and was never more than a lower mid-card wrestler who lost more than he won. Don't even try to remember when WWE made him the Red Rooster.
2 Raven
Raven was one of the biggest stars in the history of ECW. He was in WCW first, when the company tried to pass him off as a rich boy named Scotty Flamingo. He then went to ECW, reinvented himself as Raven, and returned to WCW with his successful gimmick and ended up only getting minor success.
He had his own faction in Raven's Flock but never got above the mid-card level and never showed WCW fans what made him so special in ECW.
1 The Ultimate Warrior
The most disappointing wrestler to ever sign with WCW was former WWE star The Ultimate Warrior. In WWE, Warrior was a star that rocketed to the top and then burned out just as quickly. Many behind-the-scenes problems ended his WWE career, but at the end of the day, he appeared to retire from wrestling.
When he debuted in WCW, it was an exciting moment. However, it turned out that Warrior just came in to give Hulk Hogan his win back and then leave again, never showing any potential despite his name value.