6 Times WCW weirdly tied in with musicians
As the legend goes, World Championship Wrestling bested the World Wrestling Federation for 83 straight weeks, winning what was called "the Monday night wars." Why this happened is up for debate, as professional wrestling is a very subjective form of entertainment.
However, one thing that cannot be debated is that WCW -- under the leadership of Eric Bischoff -- regularly utilized celebrities and notable non-wrestling performers in an attempt to get non-wrestling fans to tune into WCW programming.
Among the recognizable people that appeared on WCW broadcasts and pay-per-views were musicians. Some of these musicians were integrated into WCW creative as actual in-ring performers, while others simply played music their way with WCW performers integrated into their art.
Not all of these appearances yielded the expected results at the time, but many of them are hilarious, offering laughs all these years later. And that is without this list even including whatever you want to call James Brown's WCW cameo.
#1 KISS
In the late 1990s, KISS was riding high from a commercial perspective. The band's original lineup of Gene Simmons, Paul Stanley, Ace Frehley and Peter Criss had regrouped for a world tour in 1996 that was well-received from fans and critics alike.
The contributions to WCW are especially unique. First, the quartet performed a lip-synced version of the song "God Of Thunder" on-air during an episode of Nitro and was rumoured to have paid close to a million dollars for that. Second, KISS -- or most likely Simmons specifically -- created a KISS-themed wrestler known as The Demon.
Rumours exist that KISS was set to work further with WCW. One, as corroborated by Eric Bischoff, is that WCW was set to do a joint New Year's Eve pay-per-view with KISS. Another is that The Demon was set to have partners or a stable featuring other wrestlers wearing KISS makeup.
Regardless of what is true and what is just a rumour, KISS received a lot of exposure to the WCW audience, yet the wrestling company did not get much in return. The aforementioned Nitro segment featuring KISS drew one of its lowest quarter-hour ratings in WCW -- in the midst of the company's highest wave of popularity -- and the Demon character never advanced beyond lower-card status, quickly fading away.