Rodman signs with WCW, joins NWO
The NBA’s most notorious active player and one of the most recognizable athletes in all of sports has signed a contract to wrestle for WCW. Dennis Rodman, in the off-season this summer, will team with Hulk Hogan against The Giant & Lex Luger, according to current plans. The match will take place at the Bash pay-per-view July 13. Rodman will appear live at ringside at the Mar. 16 WCW Uncensored, accompanying the NWO team to the ring.
Rodman had negotiated with the WWF to be a tag partner with Goldust perhaps at SummerSlam, but WCW managed to secure his services instead. Rodman appeared in a brief taped segment on the Mar. 3 Monday Nitro.
WCW received a ton of national publicity over the weekend. The story broke nationally first in the Chicago Sun-Times. A front page story talked about Rodman’s plans. The AP picked up on the story and many local newspapers followed. It made national radio news segments. It was a topic of discussion on Chicago sports talk shows. Hogan and Rodman appeared together on the Mar. 10 Howard Stern show.
Hogan told the Sun-Times: “Dennis is a guy who wants to have some fun. And he sees that the New World Order are a bunch of guys who are kind of like him, not afraid to cross over the line, ready to kick butt and take names.”
Dwight Manly, Rodman’s agent, said Rodman did not get approval to sign the deal since his current contract does not prevent him from making personal appearances at wrestling matches. He pointed out that Rodman will be a free agent by the time he plans to wrestle this summer and therefore the Bulls will have no say-so over his activities. No one from the Chicago Bulls organization commented on record about Rodman’s decision.
Eric Bischoff and Hulk Hogan sat front row at the Bulls-New York Knicks game Sunday afternoon televised nationally on NBC. They sat behind the Knicks bench, but were obviously there as a tie-in with Rodman. Their presence was not acknowledged by the NBC announcers, nor was Rodman’s WCW deal talked about.
On the Howard Stern Show, Stern focused more on Rodman kicking the courtside photographer than he did on the WCW deal. Hogan was in the background, probably hoping to avoid Stern’s wrath. After all, Hogan has as many skeletons, if not more, than Rodman.
