The Black Scorpion was a WCW gimmick that was bound to fail from the start. Here’s a look at the hack and why it didn’t stand a chance.
In August 1990, a masked wrestler named Black Scorpion appeared on wcw and points to Sting. The entire angle was shrouded in mystery and fans were wondering who this mystery man could be. This was someone with a connection to Sting and someone who threatened to take the title from him. The whole angle blew up and fans eagerly waited to see who was behind the mask. However, by the time the angle ended, no one really cared, and the trick is that WCW never had anyone in mind to know who was behind the mask when it started. The angle sparked interest, but WCW didn’t pay off for fans. This caused it to end up as one of the most wasted angles in WCW in the early ’90s.
The black scorpion was a mysterious fighter who was targeting Sting
In 1990, Sting was the NWA World Heavyweight Champion. This was not a situation that WCW was used to at the time. Throughout the 1980s, the NWA relied on having a world champion heel and babyfaces chase them down and try to take them down. It was the opposite of WWE, which had a babyface world champion, taking down monster heels one by one. WCW could have created the same situation, lining up monsters for Sting to take down, but they opted to do something a little different. WCW brought in a mysterious new villain, known as The Black Scorpion, who nearly dominated Sting’s title reign.
WCW posed it as a mystery. Black Scorpion was Sting’s biggest enemy. However, he didn’t want Sting to know who he was, so he could torment the world champion through taunting him. He knew everything about Sting from his past. They were supposedly friends at one point, and he knew all of Sting’s strengths and weaknesses. The vignettes included taking Gordon Solie to a mysterious location for a blindfolded interview. He would often appear in promotional vignettes where he would go on long rants that would have confused The Ultimate Warrior. Not only that, but he had magical powers that he used to control people and at the same time. He even turned a man into a leopard. Things got ridiculous at that point and fans stopped caring who was under the mask.
WCW had no plans for who Black Scorpion was going to be
The fact that fans started to lose interest in who Black Scorpion was ended up being a good thing. When Ole Anderson created Black Scorpion, he had no idea who he would ultimately be. It was Ole Anderson who revealed the behind-the-scenes origin of Black Scorpion in WCW during his interview on RF Videos. Jim Herd was running WCW at the time and Ole was the head of bookings. However, the two rarely agreed. Ole said that Herd wanted silly comedy and Ole wanted old school wrestling. Ole decided to include something on the list that he didn’t make sense to: the black scorpion and Sting. He never expected Herd to buy it, especially if there was no explanation of what this meant. However, Herd loved the idea.
According to Jim Ross, Ole Anderson told him that they would find out who was under that mask later, and honestly, he didn’t even care who it was. That was the worst thing that could have happened to him at this angle. Sting won the NWA World Championship from Nature Boy Ric Flair and later learned that one of his first challengers was Black Scorpion at Clash of Champions. Black Scorpion’s first promo dropped a few clues, including “California in ’86.” The fact that there was a clue there, but the writers had no idea who was behind the mask, helped this angle fail early on.
The Black Scorpion Reveal Was A Disappointment That Made No Sense
Some fans thought that WWE Champion Ultimate Warrior was coming to WCW, but that wasn’t going to happen. Another guess was Angel of Death, who worked in WCW and was part of the same bodybuilding team that Sting and Warrior were on. He even wrestled Sting as Black Scorpion at a few house shows. However, that probably would have been an even bigger disappointment. Sting and Black Scorpion first fought at Clash of Champions. After Sting won the match, he unmasked Black Scorpion. However, the man was wearing another mask and escaped without revealing his identity. This fighter was Al Pérez, but he did not want to continue playing the character, so WCW abandoned those plans.
Sting wrestled Black Scorpion at house shows. However, different wrestlers portrayed him in these matches. While Ole Anderson was trying to find out who Black Scorpion was, Sting got into a fight with Sid Vicious. Black Scorpion returned after Sting beat up Sid and got more clues about his identity. This led to more panels where the villain began using black magic to scare Sting on several occasions. Finally, Sting defeated Black Scorpion in a Steel Cage Match at Starrcade and unmasked him. It wasn’t someone from Sting’s past. Black Scorpion unmasked as Ric Flair. This didn’t make much sense, but Flair said that he was just messing with Sting’s mind. In an interview, Flair said that WCW wanted Barry Windham unmasked as Black Scorpion, but he stepped in and offered to play the role to protect Windham, believing that he could hurt Barry’s career. WCW fired Ole Anderson after Starrcade and no one ever mentioned Black Scorpion again.