What went wrong with Scorpio?

[Futureraven: Beelzebruv]

I've just started watching 1997 RAWs, since I missed out at the time and I often hear it's one of the best years in wrestling.

I'm at Fatal 4 Way and the only times I've seen Flash Funk are a random body in the Royal Rumble, and in the bizarre team of him, Goldust and Bart Gunn against the Nation on this show.

The guy has pyro, dancing girls, his in ring work pops the crowd.

He's only been there since November 1996, how has he fallen to jobber level this fast? It's a bit of a cheesy gimmick so it'd never make the main event but he should be in the IC division with Mark Mero, HHH, Rocky and Goldust tearing it up every week.

I remember him being a pretty hyped guy in WCW with a few tag title runs so he would have been a pretty big signing at the time, what happened?

[Mozenrath]

I imagine a lot of it was just a stacked roster making him not a high priority for WWF, or him just not having people who would go to bat for him in the writer's room. I've never heard of anyone in particular burying him, but with a lot of guys to compete with, it didn't hurt to have friends. Kliq, Harts, 'Taker's guys, etc. Could be a no man's land if you didn't have some affiliation or another.

[BorneAgain]

Given the direction WWE was going, Flash Funk quickly became and ill fit for the company.

Ironically I think the Scorpio character circa his ECW days would have fit in fine. By the time they give him back his name in WWE in mid 98 it was too late, and he got lost in the silliness that was the Job Squad.

[Deleted]

He was a part of a couple of good odd couple tag teams: Scorpio and the Sandman, Scorpio and Vader.

[Allie Kitsune]

Apr 4, 2018 8:37:01 GMT -5 BorneAgain said:

Given the direction WWE was going, Flash Funk quickly became and ill fit for the company.

Ironically I think the Scorpio character circa his ECW days would have fit in fine. By the time they give him back his name in WWE in mid 98 it was too late, and he got lost in the silliness that was the Job Squad.

And there was that weird period of time where they put him with Terry Funk and called him "TCS Funk".

[Fundertaker]

Too Ahead Of His Time Scorpio

[corndog]

He was a very talented worker. When I had the network I watched 2 Cold Scorpio vs Barry Windham for the NWA title from Clash of the Champions from 92/93? and it was a fantastic match. Just to think a few years later, they would be putting guys over on a very thin WWE roster. I think the problem was at this point of time WWE was much more character driven and a lot of great workers got overlooked.

Watched some of his shoots, he even admits he had a very bad drug problem that led to his release and really peaked during his WWE run. Another interesting thing was him doing the "dick bag", and it seems like he had a lot more problems with ECW guys than WWE.

[msc]

They hadn't a clue what to do with him. And the drugs didn't work, they just made things worse, and we never saw his face again.

[auph10imitated]

He arrived when the roster was not stacked in the slightest so I dont think that was the case, but he was doomed to fail as Flash Funk.

He was a great worker and all they needed to do was tweak his 2 Cold Scorpio to Scorpio like they later did, and let him work as he was and he could have worked better. Had they not been so dead set on giving all these familiar faces new gimmicks most of them would have worked.

Mankind is really the only one who ad a whole gimmick overhaul that worked, and even he ended up reverting to Cactus Jack eventually.

[Futureraven: Beelzebruv]

Apr 4, 2018 10:43:37 GMT -5 auph10imitated said:

He arrived when the roster was not stacked in the slightest so I dont think that was the case, but he was doomed to fail as Flash Funk.

He was a great worker and all they needed to do was tweak his 2 Cold Scorpio to Scorpio like they later did, and let him work as he was and he could have worked better. Had they not been so dead set on giving all these familiar faces new gimmicks most of them would have worked.

Mankind is really the only one who ad a whole gimmick overhaul that worked, and even he ended up reverting to Cactus Jack eventually.

Even just scale it back, like, be a flamboyant high flyer.

Mark Mero did pretty good with that. Sable still hasn't totally overshadowed him where I'm at, and you can see why he was thought of as a hot prospect.

In retrospect, maybe make those 2 a tag team. Lord knows the division needed more talent, and Scorpio always had more success with a partner.

[Aceorton]

Did he talk in the WWF? Like, ever? That could have been part of the problem.

[YAKMAN is ICHIBAN]

He tried to get heat, but he was 2 Cold.

[2coldMack is even more baffled]

Drugs and, in all candor, the complete LACK of promo skills killed him dead on arrival. Scorpio's one of my all time favorite wrestlers, but the dude is terrible on the mic, almost a complete inversion of his in-ring skills.

[Hit Girl]

Nothing. He was a good boss. Homer loved him.

[Deleted]

Vince saw the legendary Scorpio dong and had to find a way to get the upper hand

[Deleted]

the 1970s George Clinton type gimmick didn't help

[efarns]

After seeing shoot interview clips, I think I know why he didn't get much interview time.

And in the ring, he did a 450 splash and ... Hmmm . . . Mark Mero to was a better hand than 2 Cold.

[The Dark Order Inferno]

Lack of mic skills and size in an era they were becoming more important than ever.

[Can you afford to pay me, Gah]

Apr 4, 2018 16:20:14 GMT -5 The Dark Order Inferno said:

Lack of mic skills and size in an era they were becoming more important than ever.

Size? HBK, Hart, and Austin where the champions most of the time frame. Sid and Taker had run but Hart and HBK where the dominate and Scorpio was about the same size if not bigger than them. WCW was dominated by Flair when he was there, again Flair not a big guy. Yes there was Vader and Sting (Sting not much bigger than Scorpio) WWE was a far cry from what it was during Hulkamania days.

[ThankGodForSidJustice]

Drug problems hurt him as they caused him to get fired from both WCW and WWF although it wasn't like they were ever going to do anything with him in WWF anyways. He maybe could've been something more in WCW though if he stayed longer. Listening to his shoot interviews he also comes off as a bit of a head case so it wouldn't surprise me if he was hard to deal with behind the scenes which also might have had something to with him underachieving in his career. From an ability standpoint he's definitely someone that should've done better in both WWF and WCW as he was super talented and ahead of his time in the ring and had charisma too. His WCW run wasn't too bad as him and Bagwell were pushed pretty decently as a team but Scorpio himself seemed like someone who could've easily been a top five babyface on his own which was level he didn't come close to reaching. In WWF he was saddled with a bad gimmick and was basically a jobber his entire run.