Despite leaving ECW as the World Champion, Mike Awesome floundered in WCW with a series of failed gimmicks.
He left ECW in controversial circumstances, signing a big-money deal with WCW with the promise to become a big star in the company.
He quickly joined the “New Blood” faction in WCW, before Mike Awesome was handed a number of terrible gimmicks that were impossible to make work.
At first, he was christened “The Fat-Chick-Thriller”, with his whole gimmick being that he had a fondness for the larger lady in his life.
After that abject failure, WCW had the genius idea to make Mike Awesome “That 70s Guy”. It was a gimmick straight from the 1970s, and completely killed any chance of him being pushed in WCW in 2000.
On the latest episode of his “83 Weeks” podcast, Eric Bischoff revealed what happened to Mike Awesome in WCW that led to his disastrous run in the company.
Bischoff spoke about how the inner workings of WCW were so bad, that he had virtually no chance of succeeding after debuting in 2000.
Awesome also didn’t quite have the talent, Bischoff claimed, so overcome the horrible atmosphere in the company, which led to his horrible push going nowhere in WCW.
“Take Tom Brady and throw him into the Detroit Lions roster. It doesn’t matter how great of an athlete or how big of a star Tom Brady would be, when you’re surrounded by a team that is not functional, that is not playing up to par, that doesn’t have momentum, it doesn’t matter.
“He had the right look. His head was squarely on its shoulders from a wrestling perspective. He was smart. He was good. But he wasn’t smart enough and good enough to rise above the lack of momentum and the dysfunction that was WCW in the year 2000.”
Mike Awesome remained with WCW until its closure in 2001, when the company was bought out by WWE.
He joined the infamous “Invasion” storyline, which you may recall completely buried the entire WCW roster and made the whole thing another “McMahon Family Storyline”.
Mike Awesome sadly passed away in 2007, after making a one-off appearance in WWE for the ECW One Night Stand pay per view in 2005. He wrestled long-time rival Masato Tanaka at the event, in one of the best matches of the night.
If you use any quotes from this article, please credit 83 Weeks, with a H/T to Atletifo for the transcription.