WCW had an unfortunate reputation for letting things on their shows spiral completely out of control. Whether or not these things were actually planned by WCW didn’t really matter, they became characteristic of the company because these were simply not things that you could ever see happening under Vince McMahon’s watch. Here are five such incidents that, if nothing else, made you want give WCW a hug for trying.

#10: The promoted a match that could only be won by putting your opponent in an electric chair.

At Halloween Havoc 1991, Sting, El Gigante, and the Steiner Brothers took on Abdullah the Butcher, Cactus Jack, Big Van Vader, and the Diamond Studd in an eight man cage match. It wasn’t just any cage match, however, this was the Chamber of Horrors match which could only be won by putting one of your opponent in an electric chair and throwing the switch.

As has been well documented, WCW tried very hard to find ways to add entertainment value to their traditionally wrestling-focused product. Since this was a Halloween themed pay per view, WCW apparently decided that an electric chair was just the kind of spooky thing they needed to give this show a little pizazz.

The match wasn’t very good, and even had a suitably goofy finish where Cactus Jack, believing that Rick Steiner was in the electric chair, threw the switch without realizing that Steiner had gotten out of the chair and thrown Abby in there instead. Sparks began flying out of the electric chair, and Abdullah began convulsing as if he was being electrocuted before suddenly going motionless.

After the match, a group of EMTs dressed like ghouls came out with a gurney, presumably to carry Abdullah to the morgue, but were they ever surprised when Abdullah suddenly revived, beat them all up, and left for the back under his own power.

#9: The Fabulous Freebirds lost the WCW World Tag Team Title 6 days before they won it.

On February 18th 1991, the fabulous Freebirds lost the WCW World Tag Team Title to the Steiner Brothers. There’s nothing outwardly strange about this title change, except for the fact that the Freebirds lost the title six days before actually winning it from Doom at WrestleWar 1991.  Since their title lost to the Steiner Brothers wouldn’t air for several weeks, the Freebirds spent the intervening time walking around with a championship that they had already lost.

#8: Robocop did a run-in to rescue Sting from the Four Horsemen.

Sting was fighting an uphill battle against the Four Horsemen in 1990: he had Ric Flair’s World Championship in his crosshairs, but since there were Four Horsemen and only one of him, Sting continually came up on the short end of his run-ins with them.  Sting needed backup, and at Capital Combat 1990, he got it from the unlikeliest of sources.

Sting, who had been sidelined with a severe knee injury and was not yet ready for in-ring competition, got beaten up and locked in a cage that happened to be at ringside. Luckily, help was on the way when Robocop (yes, Robocop from the movie) slowly plodded out of the back and to ringside. The fact that he was moving at Robocop speed meant the Horsemen had plenty of time to leisurely walk in the other direction and avoid a confrontation with the cyborg warrior.

After what seemed like forever, Robocop finally made it down to ringside and freed Sting by literally tearing the cage door off the hinges. Robocop’s law enforcement duties prevented him from remaining by Sting’s side, and so when  Sting eventually defeated Ric Flair for the World Title, a certain chrome-plated face was conspicuously missing from the celebration afterward.

#7: A wrestler was named after Adolf Hitler’s plan to exterminate the Jews.

When WCW decided to promote a Three Stages of Hell cage match at Uncensored 96, they decided that it wouldn’t do for Hulk Hogan and the Macho Man to face eight wrestlers by themselves.  Believing that an opposing group consisting of the Four Horsemen, the Dungeon of Doom, and Lex Luger didn’t stack the odds against Hogan and Savage badly enough, WCW decided to bring in Hulk Hogan’s old nemesis from the No Holds Barred movie, Zeus, and also Jeep Swenson, who they named the Final Solution.

Unfortunately, the Final Solution had already made his TV debut before anybody clued the WCW creative team in to the fact that the Final Solution was what Adolf Hitler called his plan to exterminate the Jews. WCW renamed him the Ultimate Solution by the following week’s episode of Nitro, but since the match was pretty much doomed from the start, none of this probably ended up making much difference anyway.

#6: Cactus Jack lost an ear during a wrestling match.

Cactus Jack had been through a significant amount of physical trauma during his series of matches with Vader. He had suffered a legitimate concussion after Vader powerbombed him on the concrete floor in early 1993, then later that year, nearly had his ribcage crushed in a rematch when he had Vader in a sleeper and Vader dropped backwards on top of him.

Somehow, they managed to exceed even those incidents when Cactus Jack lost his right ear during a match with Vader on WCW’s tour of Germany in April of 1994.  Yes, you read that right, a wrestler lost a body part in the ring during a match in WCW.

Mick Foley himself has said that it was a freak accident that occurred during a spot that he had done hundreds of times, where he gets whipped into the ropes, throws his body over the top, and gets his head stuck between the top and middle ropes like a noose. This time, however, the ropes were tighter than usual, and when Cactus Jack tried sliding his head out from between the ropes, his right ear was torn off the side of his head.

Well, it wasn’t actually torn right off, because the ear dangled off the side of Cactus Jack’s head for several seconds before finally dropping to the mat.  Nobody seemed to know what to do, and while the referee had the presence of mind to have the ear taken to the back and put in a bag of ice, doctors were unable to reattach it at the hospital.

God bless his heart, Cactus Jack was back in the ring within weeks and wrestling with his head wrapped in a bandage during a No DQ streetfight against the Nasty Boys.  I don’t know that those are the guys I would put in the ring with someone who had just lost a body part during a wrestling match, but given the way WCW operated at this time, can you really say it comes as a surprise?

#5: The Hosts Of A Cooking Show Join The NWO

Back in the 90s, TBS had a show called Dinner & A Movie, which combined your classic weekend movie night formula with a cooking show.  If you’ve never heard of it, there’s a good reason: it was completely forgettable except for their one notable appearance on a live Clash of the Champions event in 1997.

Much like they did on their regular show, the two hosts (whose names I won’t even bother to Google) prepared food in an on-site kitchen set, but midway through the show, they turned heel and revealed they were wearing NWO t-shirts.  Diamond Dallas Page came out and gave one of them a Diamond Cutter through a table. This turned out to be the last ever Clash of the Champions event WCW promoted, and I’m not suggesting there was any connection here, but it sure didn’t send them out on a high note.

#4: I’m Not A Fish, I’m A Man

John Tenta had gone through several identity changes since coming to WCW.  Long known by his WWF identity as the Earthquake, Tenta came to WCW in 1994 as Avalanche, essentially the same character with a name the WWF didn’t own.  When Kevin Sullivan formed the Dungeon of Doom, Tenta was reborn as Shark, complete with fishy face paint and a big, happy-looking shark drawn on the front of his tights.

Tenta was nothing if not a company guy, and even underwent hours of tattoo alteration work to have his infamous tiger tattoo changed to a big, mean looking fish.  It paid off, because he got a solid eight months out of the character before he was kicked out of the Dungeon of Doom, prompting him to begin wrestling under his own name and deliver the classic “I’m not an avalanche, I’m not a fish, I’m a man” promo.

That wasn’t the most hardcore-sounding promo in history, but it only got worse for Tenta when he wound up in a feud with Big Bubba Rogers that saw Bubba first shave half of his head, then shave off half of his beard as well.  Tenta finally got his revenge when he fought Bubba in a “Carson City Silver Dollar Match” where a sock full of change was hung on a pole.  The only problem is both men were close to 400 pounds, the pole was about fifteen feet high, and neither man could haul themselves up to retrieve it.

Jimmy Hart saved the day by climbing up and getting the sock, which Tenta then confiscated and used to knock Bubba out to score the win.  Tenta left WCW soon after, and even though he wound up with an even stupider character when he returned to the WWF as Golga, he could at least take solace in the fact that he got to wear a mask this time.

#3: The British Bulldog’s Career Is Nearly Ended By A Trapdoor

The Ultimate Warrior had this nifty smokescreen he used to make his magical entrances in WCW, but since it was just a special effect and not real magic (regardless of what the Warrior probably thought), WCW set up a trapdoor in the ring so he could sneak in and out before the smoke dissipated.  That was fine until Fall Brawl 1998, when the British Bulldog suffered a back injury taking a bad bump onto the trapdoor.

The injury was serious, and led to him getting a staph infection that nearly ended his career.  Being the warmhearted guy he was, Eric Bischoff fired the Bulldog while he was home recovering from the injury.  If you ever wondered why so many people in and around the business have bad things to say about Bischoff, this should give you a good idea of where that comes from.

#2: Pretty Much Everything Involving Rick Steiner

Rick Steiner was always a bit of a goofy character, but people tended to overlook that since he and Scott were one of the greatest tag teams in the world.  But when Scott turned on Rick and joined the NWO, things started to go off the rails for the Dogface Gremlin.  For starters, it took WCW six or seven months to even put a match between them together, and when it finally was booked for Fall Brawl 98, it didn’t happen because of a stupid angle.

Scott came out on a stretcher with an oxygen mask on and claimed to be too badly injured from a car accident to face Rick.  They wound up brawling before the segment was even over, so the fans who paid to see that match and got a dumb angle instead got pissed, and many of them demanded refunds from their cable companies.  The match was rescheduled for a month later at Halloween Havoc, and was partially promoted with the infamous confrontation between Rick Steiner and Chucky, the evil doll from the Child’s Play movies, whom Rick apparently didn’t realize wasn’t a real person.

Halloween Havoc came, and Scott decided to turn it into a WCW World Tag Team Title defense with he and the Giant defending against Rick and a partner of his choice.  Scott wasn’t one of the tag champs, but we didn’t have much time to dwell on that because Scott’s buddy Buff Bagwell, whom Scott had “turned on” only days earlier, came out during a Rick Steiner promo and offered to be his partner.

Now, Buff was still out with a broken neck he suffered at the hands of Rick Steiner, but since Rick is a moron, he had no problem trusting Buff, and happily accepted his offer.  Buff turned on him as any idiot could have seen coming a mile away, but Rick managed to defeat Scott and the Giant by himself to win the tag title, then beat Scott in an impromptu singles match right afterward.

Rick now had to pick a championship partner, and he chose Kenny Kaos, a forgettable preliminary wrestler who had a “blink and you’ll miss it” career in the big time.  Kaos was injured before too long, so Rick replaced him with Buff Bagwell’s middle-aged mother, Judy.  Rick himself suffered an injury soon afterward, the title was vacated, and we were spared any more of Steiner’s insanity, at least for the time being.

#1: Halloween Havoc 1998 Ends Before The Main Event Happens

The Rick Steiner debacle wasn’t the only thing that made Halloween Havoc 98 memorable for all the wrong reasons. It also featured two huge matches on top: one would be the long-awaited rematch between Hulk Hogan and the Warrior, and the other was Diamond Dallas Page getting his first shot at the WCW World Title, held at the time by Bill Goldberg.  Hogan and Warrior stunk up the joint, but Goldberg and DDP saved the day, because DDP worked his ass off to carry Bill Goldberg to the best match he ever had.

That was all well and good, but most of the people who bought the PPV never saw the match because the feed cut off before DDP and Goldberg even got to the ring.  See, wrestling companies only get a certain amount of PPV time for their events, and it was usually three hours in those days.  Problem was, WCW wasn’t watching the clock, and ran out of time right after Hogan and Warrior ended.

This was no freak of fate like Beware of Dog was, everything that caused this problem was completely under the control of WCW, and there’s no way they should have ever let the show run so long that they wouldn’t have time to air the main event.  In fact, if Hogan and Warrior had gone another two minutes, the fans wouldn’t have seen the finish of that match, either.  Then again, given what we ended up getting from that match, that might have turned out to be a good thing.