In the history of bad gimmicks in WCW, this may be the worst. It may be the worst gimmick ever created by ANYONE. Yes, worse than the Red Rooster. Worse than Zeus. Worse than The Shockmaster.
Well, maybe not The Shockmaster, but you get the point.
Ok, let’s back up a bit. In the early 1990’s, WCW had a problem. Sting had already feuded with Ric Flair for months, and there were no other conceivable challengers in sight. So instead of doing something that made sense (have him feud with Lex Luger, maybe), the WCW braintrust went completely off the deep end and came up with The Black Scorpion.
The Scorpion was Sting’s arch nemesis. He knew everything about Sting, as he had been his friend years ago. He knew Sting’s strengths and weaknesses. And of course, he was shrouded in darkness, so no one knew who he was.
Not even the WCW bookers!
Yep, believe it or not, when WCW began The Black Scorpion angle they had NO IDEA who they were eventually going to be the Scorpion. Of course, since he would often talk about a past he shared with Sting, it was thought to be someone from Sting’s past.
And you’ll never guess who it was.
Oh but what fun it was getting to that point. For starters, Scorpion would lure the Dean of Wrestling, Gordon Solie, to his hidden lair. Gordon would be blindfolded, and appear at least two feet shorter than the Evil Mastermind.
Then Scorpion would taunt Sting with long, drawn out monologues that made no sense. Maybe WCW should have spent less on that voice box Ole Anderson used while doing the Scorpions voice and forked out some money on some script writers. (Of course, WCW was able to reuse the voicebox for the equally awful Shockmaster gimmick.)
Even better than a garbled voice is the fact that The Scorpion performed BLACK MAGIC. I mean, he could not only do simple stuff, like commanding a referee to attack the Stinger…
…but he possessed evil, EVIL powers that would make Papa Shango green with envy!
He could turn a human into a ferocious… ummm…leopard!!
He could make a man’s head spin like a top!
He could make himself disappear!
All the while, fans sat in disbelief. Disbelief that they had spent their hard earned money on some lame ass magic show!
This led up to a big match between the Scorpion and Sting at Starrcade. WCW spared no expense in Scorpion’s entrance, in which he landed in a SPACESHIP.
Classy, no?
Anyway, a billion Scorpions showed up to wreck the party. Sting unmasked them all, before unmasking the final Scorpion, the REAL Scorpion, who turned out to be Ric Flair. And you thought his stay in a mental ward was bad.
Spaceships + two bit parlor tricks + Ole Anderson’s idiotic booking.
What’s that smell?
Why, it’s WrestleCrap!
Black Scorpion: “How about California…in ’86?”
Black Scorpion: “Sting, I’m going to destroy you. A long time has past since you last saw me. Oh yes, you know me. Or at least, you did. But don’t try to track me down. Even if you saw my face in light, you wouldn’t recognize me. My face doesn’t look the same!”
Many, many thanks to our WrestleCrap “ReCreate Some Crap” Contest Winner, Troy Ferguson, for not only his brilliant recreation of this angle, but also for supplying us with images of Gordon Solie in the Scorpion’s lair and the landing of the Scorpion’s Spaceship!