Booking the Warrior in WCW

[Ubermensch]

I think the fans' initial reaction to the Warrior was positive. However, the whole ordeal ended poorly.

The Warrior has to be kept in perspective. His allure has been his squash matches and the Urban legends surround his spotty attendance. With that in mind I would have kept him at about a 6 month contract tops.

Warrior appears and challenges Hogan, but most go through every NWO wrestler to get his match. He promptly squashes every NWO midcard wrestler on Nitro and Thunder leading to a PPV match with The Giant. The Warrior slams and beats the Giant at Falll Brawl despite Hogan's interference. The next month leads up to Hogan and The Warrior's match to great fanfare.

The Warrior beats Hogan at said Havoc to win the title. Goldberg wins World War 3, Warrior loses title to Sting at World War 3. Sting loses to Goldberg at Starrcade, while Warrior wins out against Savage.

The Warrior feuds with Flair who makes a heel turn with the Horsemen and Warrior beats Flair at Souled Out despite the interference from The Horsemen.

At Superbrawl the Warrior loses his final match to Goldberg in a very anticipated bout for the title.

 

[NancyBenoit]

Warrior was my fav growing up by far but in wcw he could only be described in one word...CARTOON!!!! That's all he was, an embarrassing cartoon of himself and everyone around him got sucked into the same little cartoon world. OWN was just stupid.

 

[Cub McCallister]

Warrior flopped in wcw hard unfortunately I heard he was bought into wcw to make hogans ego better and his feuds weren't all that great he had what 3 matches if he would of stayed there longer and had more matches he could of been a viable contender towards goldbergs title tbh and probably could of had some good matches with sting hart macho man flair ddp and others but wcw only cared about the nwo and getting them over.

 

[BigDaddyKewl]

It's really too bad they didn't utilize Warrior more in his WCW stint. Another dream match that could've happened is against Warrior's original tag team partner Sting. But he had short term deal with WCW and was working through a injury he sustained in the Fall Brawl match. They had him job to Hogan in a terrible match at Halloween Havoc and then kicked him to the curb. I guess Warrior in WCW wasn't meant to be.

 

[MrHashasheen]

I've long felt that 1998 should have been the year Hollywood went bankrupt, the year he slow-burned to a babyface turn. Consider the fact no babyface since the Ultimate Warrior himself beat Hogan on such a grand stage until Sting at Starrcade. And now you've got another major babyface in Bret Hart coming in, already once denied the opportunity to face Hogan in the WWF. The once hero of the masses, now their greatest villain has got to be more than a little pertubed by that, and indeed, I see the babyface turn happening at Starrcade '98 after the one and only Bret Hart vs Hollywood Hogan match, with Hart tapping Hogan out and Hogan turning face and realizing what he'd lost over the course of the nWo run and him going Hollywood.

What does this have to do with Ultimate Warrior, you ask? Like I said, Warrior was one of the big dogs of the Hulkamania Era, one of Hogan's few peers in a sense. Bring in him on a six month contract to both work off that history for Hogan's face turn, as well as to pop the ratings and explore some of the history and chemistry he never got to have with a lot of the WCW guys.

I could see him getting debuted by Bret Hart against Hogan and someone from the nWo in a nothing match at one of the television shows, the four working some tag matches with Bret and the nWo muscle doing most of the work and Warrior cleaning up with Hogan taking cheap-shots. Maybe a 1vs1 between Hogan and Warrior on one of the television shows that more a ringside brawl than a match, to build for Hogan vs Hart at Starrcade. As for a seperate story, maybe a brief run with Goldberg to mimick the passing of the torch between Hogan/Warrior, possibly getting put together with a younger wrestler for a power & paint team (Glacier or one of the Luchadores for maximum visual impact) and working the tag team division until a leave in early 1999?

 

[FlairFan2003]

Fact is Warrior was paid a lot of cash to wrestle one match, a loss to Hogan at Havoc. It was a great way to placate Hogan (who was always bitter about losing clean to Warrior) and that was it.

Warrior against Hart would have been horrible, Warrior couldnt wrestle and was embarrasingly one dimensional on the mic, Plus Hart wanted to be a fan fave which would have meant turning Warrior, which he might have agreed to, but the match would have sucked.

Warrior vs Savage - First Savage was injured when Warrior debuted, he made only one appearance between leaving in Spring 98 and his full time wrestling return in April 99.

Flair-Warrior would have been another flop, though Flair's superior promo ability compared to Hart would have helped the build. Again, Warrior couldnt wrestle, it would have been a 10min power move display with Flair bumping everywhere.

Other than getting beat vs Hogan the only real appeal I see in Warrior would have been a match vs Goldberg. Power monster vs Power Monster. the difference being Goldberg was way better in the ring and on the mic. This couldnt happen in WCW though because it would have overshadowed Hogan. Goldberg won the World Title in July but never main evented a PPV Till October, sharing ME status with Hogan-Warrior, although Goldberg got to close the show (vs DDP). When it was clear Hogan wasnt getting the main event at Starrcade he simply took time off (despite Hall MIA due to drinking, Hart, Luger, & Sting all injured). Great political move if Starrcade flops without him (it didnt). Do you really think Hogan would have let Warrior get a money match vs Goldberg ? No way, although Goldberg cleanly beating UW at WW3 PPV would have been a great build up to GB vs Nash at Starrcade.

Bottom line, Warrior couldnt wrestle. didnt want to wrestle, he took the pay day to lose to Hogan, that's about all he was worth. I would have rather seen Hart vs Flair in a full out feud or Savage come back and challenge Nash for the title seeking revenge for his treatment by the NWO.

 

[CrucifiedRaven]

I think two things really contributed to the "flop" of a run he had in WCW:

1) He was really only ever brought in for a one-and-done feud with Hogan, all manufactured for Hogan to go over. There were no plans for him, I don't think, beyond this.

2) Warrior's debut promo was a gong show. Go find it on YouTube. It's long, drawn out and completely unintelligible. At least in WWF Vince kept Warrior's promos short and sweet. He came in and most fans lost attention almost immediately.

 

[boozinjedi]

What happened with Warrior was a sign of what was wrong with WCW as a whole.
Shell out the big money for the big ratings pop but no real follow up...
Tease the fans with what they REALLY want...
String them out forever...
By the time it finally rolls around no one is interested...
For the love of all that is holy.....Why would you take your biggest star...turn him into the crow,and not have him do anything for A YEAR...just sat in the rafters being moody!!
I know Bischoff thought he was being revolutionary,but in the end he just drove the fans off!!

 

[Wrestlingaholic]

Warrior's was an impressive debut with little else. I believe he had 3 matches, though 2 were cameos (War Games and a Nitro 6 man), and his biggest legacy is that his entrance (stupidly through a trapdoor IN the ring) led to several injuries, including one which contributed significantly to the demise of Davey Boy Smith (WCW are seriously lucky they didn't get any negligence lawsuits against them that Fall).

As for the OPs plans for the WCW title, it is NEVER a good idea to play hot potato with your championships, particularly the top one. You can just about get away with monthly changes if it's just between two wrestlers, but to go between 4 in 3 months would completely devalue the belt - something which actually happened in early 2000 (even without David Arquette winning, the title changed hands about a dozen times in 3 months)

 

[justtxyank]

Rarely do I say this, but the OP's idea for the end of 1998 in WCW would have been horrible. Far worse than any perceived issues with the way it actually went down.

I think Warrior was actually booked pretty well outside of the weird "haunting" of Hogan that was going on. That was just stupid. But the rest of the booking was well done. Putting Warrior in a bunch of matches before the Hogan match would just burn off any steam he had. They did a REALLY good job keeping that burn alive until Halloween Havoc 1998.

As for whether there were plans for him beyond Havoc, it's been said that the answer to that question is actually yes, but Warrior was dealing with an injury and Bischoff didn't like him after dealing with him. So since his short term deal was up, Bischoff just blew him off and never bothered getting back to him to continue working with him. There was originally plans for a rubber match.

I would have liked to see Warrior get a little more run with WCW because he WAS mega over with the fans and could still give guys a good boost. But he was certainly not a big time main event player. Warrior vs The Giant would have been cool, a brief team up with Sting and then a one off match to find out who was "better" would have been cool as well. No matter what, his shelf life was 6 months tops.