The In-Ring Debut of Robocop
WCW, who brought us the Shockmaster, had a lot of big ideas in the early 90s. Unfortunately, some of them might have been a little too big. One example is the 1990 in-ring debut of Robocop.
Now, this wasn’t supposed to be understood by fans as a wrestler named after Robocop. This was meant to be the actual film character Robocop. You remember, the cyborg who fights crime?
He came in to help the hero Sting as he fought Ric Flair, whose cronies in the Four Horsemen interfered in every match. Robocop would come to Sting’s defense, making sure everything was fair.
See, at the time, WCW’s Executive Vice President Jim Herd was trying to build a larger children’s audience — something their competition the WWF (now WWE) were doing well. Despite being a hyper violent film by auteur Paul Verhoeven, Robocop had grown an enormous following among kids after being released on home video.
And as Robocop 2 was about to be released, Herd saw an opportunity to appeal to that young demographic.
What happened instead was a work of surreal pop theater.
There was good news for the many fans who hated it — Robocop appeared for one night only at Capital Combat 1990.