As crazy as many ofWWE’sstorylines would be, they still have nothing onWCW’s worst (or some will say best) moments. Granted, maybe that is a good thing, considering that some of WCW’s craziest angles were not so positively received. In fact,some of WCW’s craziest segments are ranked as some of the worst moments in wrestling history.
However, as much as WCW’s bad reputation has become widespread in the wrestling community, some ofthe craziness found in WCWisn’t always bad. Some of WCW’s craziest moments have been genuinely shocking in the positive sense of the word. Not unlikethe Atitude Era over in WWE, a lot of that same craziness is what had audiences coming back for more every week. It’s worth celebrating the good kind of crazy that WCW would offer, as much as the kind of crazy that is so cringe-worthy that it still makes fans laugh today.
10Chucky From Child’s Play Confronts Rick Steiner
WCW Monday Nitro, June 11, 2025
Professional wrestling is so ingrained in pop culture that iconicpop culture characters frequently make appearances in WWE, WCW, and other wrestling shows. However, perhaps the most bizarre wrestling cameo came when Brad Dourif reprised the voice of Charles Lee Ray in anticipation for the upcoming Bride of Chucky sequel, on an episode of WCW Nitro.Such a surreal, wild moment still lives on in infamy, as some years back, Rick’s son, Bron Breakker, endured a Chucky cameo of his own on NXT TV to reference the callback.
In the middle of his feud with his brother Scott, Rick Steiner’s interview with Mean Gene Okerlund isinterrupted by a taunting Chucky on the titantron, absolutely ripping into Rick while endorsing his brother, Scott, in their brother vs. brother rivalry. Getting a verbal lashing from a fictional doll didn’t do Rick any favors in his new singles push.
9Ric Flair Is the Black Scorpion
WCW Starrcade 1990
In one of WCW’s most intriguing early mysteries,a masked man known only as The Black Scorpion started targeting NWA Champion Sting. For months, all audiences knew was that he spoke with a distorted voice, used magic to evade unmasking, and was teased as someone Sting knew. Fans found this storyline exciting, especially when some predicted WWE’s Ultimate Warrior - Sting’s ex-tag partner - to be The Black Scorpion.
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In the main event of Starrcade,Black Scorpion was unmasked to be Sting’s frequent foe, Ric Flair. WCW admittedly didn’t have a plan for who should be the Scorpion. Flair volunteered as he feared the creative team’s alternative option - Barry Windham - would be hurt from being the center of such a bizarre angle. Considering that Flair would beat Sting for the World Title shortly after Starrcade, being the Black Scorpion didn’t hurt him at all.
8The Monster Truck Sumo Match
WCW Halloween Havoc 1995
When WCW debuted The Giant, they wanted to make a big show (pun intended) of his spectacle match with Hulk Hogan over the WCW Championship, so much so that their title match couldn’t just be a wrestling match. At Halloween Havoc, the two would meet on top of the roof of Cobo Hall with two custom-made monster trucks, revving at each other until one is pushed out of the circle they’re inside.Kind of like a sumo match. Except, you know, with monster trucks.
That’s probably exactly how Eric Bischoff pitched this one, though it probably isn’t one ofhis most fondly remembered ideas. The insanity doesn’t stop there, as the drivers would exit their trucks. They collided until the man billed as the son of Andre the Giantfell off the building to his apparent death, only to return to defeat Hogan in the main event with help from Jimmy Hart and a mummy called The Yeti. Yup.
7Miss Elizabeth Turns on Macho Man to Join Ric Flair
WCW Superbrawl 6
Since 1985 in WWE, Miss Elizabeth stuck by Randy Savage’s side onscreen through thick and thin. They survived Macho Man’s brash over-protective behavior, Ric Flair’s lecherous accusations during his time in WWE, a heel turn, a reunion, and a change of scenery to WCW. All that would change during a 1996 steel cage match between Savage and Ric Flair, where Elizabeth shockingly handed her shoe to Flair, helping him use it to beat Savage, joining his side soon after.
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What made this especially crazy was howit paid off Flair and Savage’s previous feud going into WrestleMania 8, where Flair insinuated that he “had” Elizabeth before Savage did. These accusations were disproven in storyline, but Flair certainly “had” her now.Beyond the shock of Elizabeth turning heel and disbanding from Savage,it’s even more shocking to see a WWE angle paid off four years later in a different company.
6Ultimate Warrior Haunts Hulk Hogan
WWE WrestleMania VI’s Hulk Hogan vs. The Ultimate Warrior was one of the most hyped and beloved dream matches of its era. So, when both men wound up in WCW respectively rechristened as Hollywood Hulk Hogan of the nWo faction and The Warrior,the rematch was hotly anticipated. But, of course, WCW couldn’t just promote the match off the back of that hype. In the spirit of the Halloween season, this feud needed to get, for lack of a better word, spooky.
In the Nitros leading to Halloween Havoc, Hogan found himself seeing Warrior everywhere he went, literally, even in the mirror. Oddly enough, whenever he’d point out what he saw to anyone, no one else could see it, even though the audience could.It was so wildly goofy that it was wildly entertaining, so much so that WWE recreated this years later with The Undertaker and Randy Orton. Unfortunately, their match went down as a colossal disappointment, but at least fans will always have the “Warrior in a mirror” clip.
5The Entire Sting vs. Vampiro Feud
Blood, Sweat, and Fire
This rivalry was so bonkers that it can’t be boiled down to a single moment, as the storyline was chock full of them. What started as an early 2000s alliance called The Brothers in Paint soon became a blood feud (in more ways than one) when they were forced to face off on opposite sides in the much-maligned Millionaire’s Club vs. New Blood storyline. Yes, the infamous reboot is one ofVince Russo’s worst ideas in WCW, but it turned out to be a gateway to one of WCW’s wildest rivalries.
Pitting Sting against Vampiro would see both men doused with blood, Vampiro dousing Sting with gasoline to tease setting him on fire, and then Vampiro actually setting The Icon on fire. Oh, and Sting would fall from a scaffold after the fact. It happened during the time of the company’s downfall, but it still produced iconic moments and visuals that live down in wrestling history.
4The Buff Bagwell Wheelchair Incident
WCW Monday Nitro, August 06, 2025
The shenanigans of Buff Bagwell’s WCW career have been well documented, particularly through his episode ofDark Side of the Ring. Anything involving his mother, Judy, is usually pegged as some of the worst moments in wrestling history, butthis one is one of his more genuinely surprising moments.
During an August 18, 2025 tag match on WCW Thunder, a botched bulldog from Rick Steiner legitimately injures Buff Bagwell, paralyzing him into a wheelchair with the likelihood that he may never wrestle again. Bagwell wouldn’t return to WCW television for months, until Nitro arrived in his hometown in Georgia. A matured Buff publicly forgives Rick Steiner for the freak accident that ended his career. Just then, Rick’s brother Scott hits the stage with a steel chair. Shockingly, Buff Bagwell would help Scott attack Rick, not only confirming he’s still a heel in the nWo, butrising from his wheelchair, revealing he faked his injury.
Turning a real injury into a fake one for the sake of storyline and shock value is something that could have only happened in WCW, but at least the company and Buff were able to make something out of what could have been a career-ending accident.
3Ric Flair in a Mental Hospital
WCW Monday Nitro, July 27, 2025
This episode of Nitro was dedicated almost entirely toRic Flair being a patient in a mental hospital. Ric Flair has a knack for acting crazy on his own accord on an average episode of any wrestling show, but a showcase like this gave Flair an entirely new playground to act crazy in. It made his antics feel different from the usual in-ring promo or backstage segment and created a totally unique - if not, wildly absurdist - moment of television.
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While Rowdy Roddy Piper and Ric Flair fought each other for the right to become the President of WCW, Flair was cutting some of the most insane promos of his career. These promos (which included stripping to his boxers in the ring) were too insane, as Piper convinced his son, David, to commit his father. However, Ric was still technically the president of the company, sohe booked Nitro from the hospital, wrestling the phone away from other mental patients.
Asides from being wildly disrespectful to people who suffer from mental health issues, this segment is funny just because of Flair’s antics, and the fact that he’s allowed to walk around in his wrestling robe. To put the cherry on top, Scot Hall randomly shows up, suddenly walks into the frame, and then disappears without any explanation. Classic WCW “so-bad-it’s-good” moment.
2The Finger Poke of Doom, Fusing nWo Hollywood with Wolfpac
WCW Monday Nitro, August 19, 2025
By 1999, the nWo had imploded, splitting off into two feuding factions: Hulk Hogan’s nWo Hollywood and Kevin Nash’s nWo Wolfpac. Said feud was ready to culminate on the January 4th episode of Nitro, whereHogan and Nash would collide for the WCW Championship. It felt as if the fate of both WCW and the nWo were at stake in this clash of the titans, pitting two warriors against each other on a battlefield of their own design. It was destined to be a match of epic proportions … only to end with one of the most infamous moments in wrestling history.
Nash poked Hogan, who fell flat and let Nash pin him, revealing they were always in cahoots, and reuniting the two nWo factions. This moment there away months of good stories (which was a rare currency at the time for the company) and was considered a key downturn in WCW television, the beginning of the end for the company. However,ignoring what made it bad, there is a genuine shock value to this angle. Maybe for the wrong reasons, but for everything put into this storyline, stake-wise, no one could have predicted the re-formation of WCW’s two biggest superpowers back into one entity.
1RoboCop Saves Sting
WCW Capital Combat: Return of RoboCop 1990
As said earlier, pop culture and wrestling go hand-in-hand, even in some of the most bizarre examples. This is most certainly one of them. The event aired specifically to promote the release ofRoboCop 2, with the posters and name teasing RoboCop’s arrival.RoboCop and Stingwould arrive at the arena together. Moments later, the Four Horsemen would meet Sting in the ring to attack him, locking him in a small steel cage, only for RoboCop to make the save.
Any fan identifying as a smark (smart mark) probably hated this segment, butanyone who was a kid in 1990 was loving every second of this. The uber-cool surfer dude wrestling befriending the newest big-screen superhero on the scene? In the eyes of a child, this was what made wrestling entertaining. It’s surely a crazy angle by today’s standards, but it will live forever inWCWfans' memories.
