There is a laundry list of major stars from the Monday Night War era who fans can rattle off the top of their heads, ranging from Stone Cold Steve Austin, The Rock, Triple H, Mick Foley, and The Undertaker to Hollywood Hogan, Kevin Nash, Sting, Goldberg, and Ric Flair.
Related: 10 Wrestling Stars With The Biggest Earnings During The Monday Night WarThe lists go on and on but one name that hardly ever comes up—or at least takes even hardcore fans quite a while to arrive at—is Mike Awesome. He appeared for WCW quite a bit in the company’s last year and might have been a top star as the promotion floundered in its final days. Instead, how they used him became part of the problem rather than part of the solution.
Mike Awesome Established Himself As An Elite Talent In Japan And ECW
Mike Awesome joined a long list of big men to enjoy success heading overseas to wrestle in Japan, and had a particularly decorated career in the Frontier Martial-Arts promotion in the 1990s. A larger base of the American audience got to know him via ECW, though. Particularly amidst a roster of smaller talents, Awesome stood out as an athletic giant who could really work, including a great David vs. Goliath feud with Spike Dudley. Awesome was rewarded for his efforts by being a regular presence toward the top of the card and a two-time world champion.
Mike Awesome Signed With WCW Under Controversial Circumstances
The way in which Mike Awesome transitioned from ECW to WCW was nothing if not controversial and messy. He was actually the reigning ECW Champion when he made the leap. In a shoot interview with High Spots, Awesome discussed that he hadn’t been paid money owed to him, and that contributed to his choice to unceremoniously leave the company, and moreover that he wasn’t happy with the choices around his final booking to ultimately drop the title.
Related: WCW Failed Their Chance To Make ECW Stars Main EventersThere was a natural story to be told of an elite champion from another promotion joining WCW, just as WWE did acknowledge when their own Tazz was the transitional champion to get the ECW strap off Awesome and move back to the ECW roster. Instead, WCW kept Awesome’s past mostly unspoken of, taking away what might have been a springboard for a star run.
To be fair, WCW did push Awesome early on, though. He engaged with no lesser stars than Hulk Hogan, Kevin Nash, and Diamond Dallas Page, more than holding his own. Moreover, he became an integral part of the New Blood faction and a stunt that saw him throw Kanyon off a steel cage briefly established a Career Killer gimmick for the big man.
Mike Awesome Became The Fat Chick Thriller
Mike Awesome’s time as a serious threat and his potential to be a main event fixture or breakout star fizzled quickly. Two months into his tenure he was rebranded as The Fat Chick Thriller en route to becoming That 70s Guy—silly gimmicks that had mid-card written all over them, and that completely undermined what a unique big man talent he’d proven he could be on smaller stages.
Awesome wrapped up his WCW run on slightly stronger terms as an enforcer for Team Canada. Nonetheless, he felt miscast as the muscle behind Lance Storm. While Storm was one of WCW’s best talents and also someone they arguably under-used, Awesome had big-time star written all over him, too, and should have been better featured as a wrestler in his own right.
In an interview years later with Highspots, Awesome discussed his belief that Vince Russo punished him with more poor creative because he was a distant relative of Hulk Hogan, whom Russo had had a falling out with in 2000.
In the end, Mike Awesome would work with WWE for a spell, but the bloom was already off the rose for him as a star on the truly national or global level. He never escaped the mid-card shuffle there. A one-off return in 2005 seemed to attest to all Awesome’s squandered potential, though. He worked the ECW reunion One Night Stand PPV and tore the house down with Masato Tanaka and match that drew a huge reaction from the fans. Performances like this suggested what Awesome might have been as an impressive big man worker with staying power (whose talents may have even connected with fans today) had he not been obscured by WCW just when he might have risen to superstar status.
