Mike Awesome may have been a top name in ECW, but nothing could have prepared him for his underwhelming run as part of WCW.
Awesome joined the Atlanta-based promotion in 2000, despite being the ECW World Champion at the time, and would become part of the ‘New Blood’ faction.
That July, Awesome became the ‘Fat-Chick-Thriller’ who was infatuated with heavyset women, before becoming ‘That 70s Guy.’
On the latest episode of his “83 Weeks” podcast, Eric Bischoff said Awesome had all the tools to be a success but WCW was not the right place to be at this point in time. He said,
“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.”
After the collapse of WCW, Awesome was hired by the WWF as part of the Invasion storyline. He would later work for several indie promotions before passing away in 2007.