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Alex Wright’s famous WCW dance almost never made it to television because he wanted absolutely nothing to do with it.
During a conversation with Developmentally Speaking, Wright explained that the whole thing started when WCW office personnel saw him dancing to techno music at a club. Wright was simply dancing the way he normally would back home in Germany, but management immediately saw something they could use on television.
“I just danced like I would dance in a dance club in Germany to techno music, and they said, ‘What’s that? That’s different.’ I said, ‘Well, that’s how I dance in Germany.’ He said, ‘Hey, you have to do that in the ring.’ And I said, ‘No, I’m not going to do that.’”
Wright came from a traditional wrestling background and didn’t want his character built around dancing. WCW pushed ahead with it anyway, and Wright now admits they were right.
“I was brought up like pure wrestling, not too much entertainment, just wrestling.”
“They said, ‘Okay, you have to do that.’ I did it, and I must say that was the best decision what I could have done. I mean, look, it’s like 30 years ago and you still are doing an interview with me. A lot of people are forgotten after six months off of TV.”
Wright credited the dance with making him instantly recognizable, especially with younger fans and women, but he also admitted there was a downside.
“I’m very thankful that people still remember me, and that’s one big part. The dance was different. It made me very popular and everybody knew me very quickly. On the other hand, I had a hard time with some fans because they never gave me a chance and looked past the dancing and looked at my wrestling abilities.”
Three decades later, the thing Wright originally fought against is still one of the biggest reasons fans remember him.
Do you think the dancing made Alex Wright a bigger WCW star, or did it keep fans from appreciating how good he was in the ring? Let us know in the comments.