|
Who can forget his awesome heel turn in 1997. WCW had Wright wrestle in several tag team matches with what some might call sub-par tag team partners. Wright and the rotating list of wrestlers he had as partners would usually lose to tougher teams. And ironically, though Wright was still popular on the television programs WCW Pro and WCW Saturday Night, he was losing popularity, and even getting booed by some fans, on Monday Nitro and on some pay-per-views. Some believe that these two things combined began to frustrate Wright. On the May 12, 1997 edition of Nitro, Wright partnered with Ice Train against Konan and Hugh Morrus of the Dungeon of Doom. When Ice Train needed some help, Wright claimed to be unable to continue due to a sudden, unexplainable knee injury and left Ice Train to wrestle the other two opponents by himself. Wright was then pushed as a heel in the summer of 1997. On the July 28 edition of Nitro, he defeated Chris Jericho to win the Cruiserweight Championship. After winning the title, Wright began a feud with Jericho at that point, including a successful title defense against Jericho at Road Wild, before dropping the title back to Jericho on August 16 edition of Saturday Night. However, five days later, he defeated Último Dragón on the August 21 edition of Clash of the Champions to win the World Television Championship.Wright was able to successfully defend the TV title against Lord Steven Regal on an episode on Monday Nitro. Though Regal was also a heel, the fans disliked Wright so much, they often cheered or rooted for Regal during the match.
|