10 Former WCW Wrestlers You Thought Were Retired (But Aren't)

After the demise of World Championship Wrestling, it wasn’t uncommon to see WCW stars pop up all over the place, from WWE to Impact and beyond. However, given that WCW lasted from the late 1980s to 2001, many of those stars have retired (or, sadly, died), so ex-WCW talent showing up these days is increasingly rare, although talent like Rey Mysterio, Sting, and Goldberg are still going concerns in wrestling.

While even the youngest WCW stars are getting up there in years, there are still some ex-WCW wrestlers who have yet to hang up the boots — including at least 10 of whom many fans likely assumed had already retired.

10 Scott Steiner

After WCW went under, former World Champion and multi-time Tag Team Champion Scott Steiner had a notoriously disappointing run in WWE, followed by a stint in Impact Wrestling where he became a member of the Main Event Mafia. Given that he entered the WWE Hall of Fame in 2022, fans might assume that Steiner had retired at some point over the years.

However, he’s been wrestling ever since, with his last major match being against Aron Stevens at the NWA Hard Times pay-per-view in 2020 a couple of months before he was rushed to the hospital. However, he’s continued to perform, with his most recent match going down in late 2022.

9 2 Cold Scorpio

2 Cold Scorpio with the ECW TV Championship

Before he made an impression on ECW fans, 2 Cold Scorpio was a part of WCW, where he debuted in 1992, enjoyed a Tag Team Title reign with Marcus Alexander Bagwell, and even took part in the infamous Collision in Korea.

While many fans may remember his later run in WWE and even his stint in Pro Wrestling NOAH, Scorpio has continued to wrestle all over the indies to this day. The most high-profile place fans can see him is in Game Changer Wrestling, where he’s taken on some standout talent, including Minoru Suzuki.

8 Tommy Rich

While the NWA World Heavyweight Championship has been held by some all-time greats, it also has had a few dud champions, including Tommy “Wildfire” Rich, who briefly dethroned Harley Race to hold a belt for an oft-discussed four days before dropping it back to the former champ. By the late ‘80s, he was wrestling for WCW, where he managed to hold the World Six-Man Tag Team Championship twice — once as a babyface and once as a heel.

After a run in ECW in the late 1990s, Tommy Rich has been wrestling in the indies, albeit not on a consistent basis. With opponents including Jerry Lawler, Mance Warner, and the tag team BUSSY, Rich has wrestled as recently as 2023.

7 Mr. Hughes

While fans may remember Mr. Hughes best from his couple of stints in WWE, his 1990-1992 run with WCW was his first major run in wrestling. There, he initially debuted as Big Cat Hughes before turning heel and becoming Lex Luger’s bodyguard, Mr. Hughes. In recent years, Hughes works as a trainer, having trained current stars like Jonathan Gresham, Apollo Crews, and Moose.

That might lead one to believe that Hughes has retired, but he also continues to wrestle on the indies, with one of his most recent matches happening in March 2023.

6 The Barbarian

The Barbarian makes his entrance Cropped

For NWA and WWE fans of the 1980s, The Barbarian is best known for his run alongside The Warlord as the face-painted heels known as The Powers of Pain. For 1990s WCW fans, The Barbarian was part of the midcard tag team The Faces of Fear alongside fellow monster heel Meng (a.k.a. Haku).

Shockingly, The Barbarian still steps into the ring to this day and has been known to reunite with both Warlord and Meng on the indie scene.

5 Raven

One of the more influential and unappreciated wrestlers of the 1990s and 2000s, Raven struck gold with his grungy cult leader gimmick, bringing the act to ECW, WCW, WWE, Impact Wrestling, and even Ring of Honor. Most fans likely haven’t seen him wrestle since his time in the Impact Zone, but Raven has yet to retire, although his number of matches has decreased over the years.

While many of his bouts on the indies involve former ECW talent Raven most recently took part in Major League Wrestling’s 40-man Royal Rumble-style Battle Riot.

4 Ernest “The Cat” Miller

A legitimate karate champion who found his way into wrestling thanks to being Eric Bischoff’s kid’s karate instructor, Ernest “The Cat” Miller proved to be a very fun addition to the WCW roster. Initially debuting as part of the big Glacier “Blood Runs Cold” angle, Miller ended up becoming an authority figure as well as an on-screen facilitator for a random James Brown appearance at a pay-per-view.

After wrestling his last major match for WWE in 2004, Miller has enjoyed several in-ring returns over the years. His latest return kicked off in 2022 with a match against Joey Janela, as seems to often happen with many seemingly retired stars.

3 Mark Jindrak

One of the many Power Plant guys that made up the Natural Born Thrillers faction in late period WCW, Mark Jindrak ended up capturing the World Tag Team Championship twice alongside fellow Thriller Sean O’Haire. In the 2000s, Jindrak found a load of success in Mexico’s CMLL, where he wrestled as Marco Corleone and co-founded the original Los Ingobernables faction.

He stepped away from the ring in 2018 to run a restaurant, so fans may be surprised to find out that Jindrak actually returned to competition in Mexico in 2022.

2 La Parka

For loads of fans sitting through those three-hour Nitro broadcasts, the cruiserweight luchadors were a highlight of the show, especially La Parka, a heelish skeleton man who earned the nickname of “The Chairman” thanks to his love for hitting other wrestlers with chairs.

Mainstream fans likely haven’t seen La Parka since she showed up in Impact in 2004, but he shockingly still continues to wrestle all over the place, with haunts in recent years including AAA, Major League Wrestling, and the Mexican indies. While he currently wrestles under the ring name LA Park, he still wears the recognizable skeleton gear.

1 Shane Douglas

A figure crucial in the rise of ECW, “The Franchise” Shane Douglas was no stranger to WCW, wrestling for the promotion in the early 1990s as well as for a post-ECW run from 1999 to the early 2000s. Despite his last major run being in Impact Wrestling a few years after WCW, Douglas is still a regular on the independent wrestling scene, where in recent years he’s been wrestling a few times a month.

Like Raven, he’s no stranger to clashes with fellow ECW alumni, especially Gary Wolfe, whose accidental injury at the hands of Shane Douglas turned into a big angle in the ‘90s.