Former Multi-Time Champion In WCW Reveals Why He Turned Down Multiple Contract Offers From WWE


When WWF/WWE bought out WCW back in 2001, there were a number of superstars who were never really seen again and many wondered why they just disappeared. Alex Wright is a former multi-time champion in WCW and he never did make it to WWE, but that doesn’t mean they weren’t interested in him. He has now revealed exactly why he didn’t make the jump from WCW to WWF to be a part of the entire “Invasion” angle.

Alex Wright was quite popular during his time in WCW and he actually spent almost his entire wrestling career with the promotion. During his run, Wright won the WCW Cruiserweight Title, WCW Television Title, and the World Tag Team Titles with Disco Inferno when they were the Boogie Knights.

After WWE (then WWF) bought out WCW in 2001, many thought that he would be one of the superstars the McMahons kept around. Strangely enough, Alex Wright never made it to WWE and ended up disappearing entirely from wrestling scene at that point.

Many wondered what happened to the man known as “Das Wunderkind” and later during his WCW career, the name of Berlyn. It appears as if he had just had enough of all the bad stuff in the business and wanted out.

[Image by WWE]

Wrestle:List recently caught up with Alex Wright to talk about a number of things in his life today and from his time in WCW. It appears as if he did have some contract negotiations with WWE after they bought out WCW, but he eventually turned them down completely.

“After they bought WCW they approached me a couple of times. One time they wanted to give me a buyout of my contract, as I was one of the few wrestlers that had direct contracts with Time Warner, so WWE couldn’t buy that contract. They offered me a buyout but it wasn’t good so I said no and I sat out my contract. After that, they approached me twice and there were talks. I was very honored that they asked me and wanted to give me the chance, but I am the kind of they guy that wants to give 100% when I’m in the ring. I knew I couldn’t do that at the time because I was burnt out.”

Wright was a part of WCW during the infamous “Monday Night Wars” with WWE and he said it was an “unbelievable” time to be a wrestler. Still, having so many wrestlers under contract led to a lot of problems behind the scenes and actually brought up great deal of “backstabbing.”

It was back in 2014 that the official website of WWE caught up with Alex Wright at the Performance Center in Orlando to see what he had been up to in recent years. Wright had long said that he quit wrestling and moved away from it entirely due to the politics going on backstage in WCW.

[Image by WWE]

He actually feels as if that is the reason his Berlyn gimmick didn’t work as well.

“It basically failed because at that time the backstage politics was really bad at WCW. Eric Bischoff was on his way out and Vince Russo was on his way in. Nobody really knew what was going on, who was going to be the boss, who wasn’t going to be the boss. Vince Russo didn’t want to take any ideas from wrestlers Eric Bischoff debuted. So that was the reason why. Everybody else, the wrestling sheets and the fans said it was one of the best debuts of a gimmicks for WCW and had a lot of potential. The fans really reacted well, so it was just backstage politics. I should have saved that gimmick and gone to WWE, probably would have been really popular.”

With three championship reigns on his record and jumping into the business with a major company such as WCW at the age of 18, Alex Wright really had a lot going for him. He was a very talented superstar who had personality, interesting gimmicks, and in-ring talent, but the politics of the business took him away from it all. Looking back now, he may have been a huge success in WWE, but the contract negotiations simply didn’t work out as planned and that is all in the “what if?” category.

[Featured Image by WWE]

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