Scott Norton - Reimagining His WCW Run
Scott ‘Flash’ Norton was a unique athlete, unlike many of his contemporaries. While newer fans may only recognize him from his recent appearances on episodes of Dark Side Of The Ring, he is most fondly remembered as a member of the New World Order or for his tag team with Buff Bagwell, which had one of the best tag team names ever: Vicious and Delicious. However, limiting one's knowledge of Norton to his work as a member of the NWO B-Squad does a great disservice to the man. In Japan, he is one of the most celebrated gaijins (foreign wrestlers) in history, as evidenced by his impressive resume as a two-time IWGP Heavyweight Champion.
So why was Norton packaged so poorly during his run in World Championship Wrestling? Norton first got a sniff of WCW in 1993, when he was set for a feud with the company’s franchise player, Sting. Following a lot of backstage goings-on and seeing that following his proposed loss to Sting at 1993’s Slamboree PPV and not being booked any further, Norton wisely made the decision that just showing up to the job and disappearing would hurt his standing in New Japan and chose to walk away. This very well could be the cause of the company’s refusal to put a spotlight on him later in the decade, but this can neither be confirmed nor denied.
As for Sting’s opponent at Slamboree that year? WCW chose to replace Norton with “The Prisoner” who was the former Nailz in WWF, shortly after his controversial departure following his backstage scuffle with Vince McMahon. Norton would eventually return to WCW in 1996, where he would team with Ice Train as Fire & Ice. While, in theory, a team of giant men with similar styles wrecking people could have gotten over, the team never really amounted to anything and eventually was split up.
As is tradition in professional wrestling, the two would feud briefly before Norton would go on to join the New World Order, where he remained a background player and auxiliary presence until the group finally imploded a few years later. Norton would return to the Land of the Rising Sun for most of his career, with his most recent high-profile match being at 2017’s Wrestle Kingdom in a battle royal and a 10-man tag team match against the Bullet Club. One can't help but wonder what could have been with the man’s career had WCW treated him like the monster that he truly was.
Scott Norton’s Run In WCW Reimagined
In 1995, Scott Norton returned to WCW just before the debut of Nitro, even battling Macho Man Randy Savage on the second edition of the prime-time show. Despite his likeable and charismatic personality, Norton's mic skills were his flaw. To address this, we propose one simple change that would significantly impact both WCW and ECW.
Norton is proudly one of the Minnesota crew of huge guys who were all successful at different levels of the business. Names like Curt Hennig, the Road Warriors, Nikita Koloff, and Barry Darsow are all either Hall of Famers or simply awaiting their enshrinements. But there is one name there that we will bring back as a mouthpiece for Norton, especially since that person had been forced into retirement already. We speak of none other than Ravishing Rick Rude. This does take away his run with ECW as an auxiliary player to Shane Douglas and the Triple Threat, but you can only sometimes have everything line up perfectly.
Ahead of the debut of both Norton and Nitro itself, Rick Rude returns to WCW Saturday Night and proclaims that while he can no longer go in the ring, he has found a new man to do the dirty work for him. His first two targets would be the two men in WCW that he felt had wronged him the most. The first would be Sting, the man who he deemed responsible for ending his career due to a spot in Japan that resulted in Rude injuring his back on the raised platform. The other would be Ric Flair, the man with whom he feuded before his career ended over the International Heavyweight Title.
Following the shocking return of Lex Luger on the first Nitro, Bobby Heenan goes into overdrive on who could be Rick Rude's new muscle as it is built for a debut match the following week. This was the week where in reality, Norton faced Randy Savage, and it will remain the same here, with the announce team putting Norton's accomplishments over hard as Rude leads him to a massive victory over one of the biggest names in the business.
From here, Norton goes through the lower and mid-card, running through any opposition Rude placed in front of him, building him up until he is deemed ready to face off against Sting. Think of it as comparable to the build Bill Goldberg would receive a few short years later, except with a heel tinge and one hell of a mouthpiece leading the way.
As the calendar changes to 1996, Norton continues to tear through his competition with Rude, beginning to make overt challenges to Ric Flair, the World's Champion. Unfortunately for Norton and Rude, Flair is too occupied being a part of the new Alliance To End Hulkamania, which leads to the disastrous Tower of Doom match at Uncensored 96.
Unfortunately, despite our rewriting of history, this match still needs to happen as it was truly the moment Hulkamania died, a merciful death leading to the New World Order. At SuperBrawl VI, Norton is matched off against the United States Champion Konnan, with the title on the line. Following another brutal match with a few hope spots for Konnan, Norton powers the champion down for the 3-count and becomes the new United States Champion.
In the weeks leading up to Slamboree, Sting shows a much darker edge as he continues attacking Norton following his matches, wanting one more shot at Norton. With two weeks left until the PPV, Sting abducts Rude and has him agree to postpone the World Title match so that Sting and Norton can finally settle their issues in a steel cage winner-take-all match.
At Slamboree, the two men clash in another hard-hitting steel cage match, and after a ton of back and forth, Sting finally emerges victorious over Norton, handing him his first official loss in WCW. He also becomes both the United States Champion and the Number One Contender for the World Championship the following month at the Great American Bash.
This is just a glimpse of how we've reinvented Scott Norton's introduction and initial tenure with WCW.
