RoboCop’s Bizarre Pro Wrestling Cameo (& Team With Sting) Explained

Professional wrestling is a crazy world at the best of times, but in 1990 WCW welcomed a guest appearance by fictional movie character RoboCop. Wrestling has never been the most serious of entertainment forms, and for the most part, fans are willing to roll with really silly stuff if the show remains fun. Some things are hard for even wrestling fans to accept though, and one of those is the idea of a fictional character becoming part of the show.

While professional wrestlers are obviously athletes/actors that play characters bringing pre-written storylines to life, wrestling does still try to act like it exists in the real world, with performers often doing media interviews and social media posts in character. Certain big exceptions, such as the magical powers of The Undertaker, were longstanding exceptions to that reality, but for the most part, wrestling doesn’t tend to get explicitly supernatural or indulge in the impossible.

That’s what makes things like “zombies” attacking The Miz on a recent WWE pay-per-view, or The Muppets hosting Monday Night Raw and being treated like regular people when backstage, seem so ridiculous and worthy of eye-rolls from annoyed fans. RoboCop appearing in character on WCW’s Capital Combat 1990 definitely falls in that same realm, especially considering that the RoboCop franchise isn’t even set in the present day.

With the possible exception of Goldberg, WCW never produced a more popular wrestling hero than Sting. The Stinger was in line for his first world title win in 1990, and after accepting a match against champion and frequent rival Ric Flair, the latter and the Anderson brothers attacked Sting and ejected him from the stable. Unfortunately, Sting was injured for real during the scripted fight and was out for a few months. During that time, Sting’s pal Lex Luger challenged Flair in his friend’s stead.

Capital Combat 1990 featured another match between Luger and Flair for the WCW title, but a nearly healed Sting also promised to bring his new friend RoboCop to even the odds. This was promoted heavily, with the show being subtitled “The Return of RoboCop,” and Sting appearing in vignettes alongside RoboCop in the marketing. Sure enough, when the Horsemen attacked Sting and locked him inside a small cage – at ringside as part of an earlier match involving manager Jim Cornette – RoboCop marched out, scaring the Horsemen off and bending the cage bars to free Sting.

While the crowd cheered, announcer Jim Ross – who currently works for WWE rival AEW – seemed to be having trouble not breaking character when calling RoboCop’s ridiculous appearance, and Sting would later admit the stunt embarrassed him. RoboCop’s WCW cameo came about due to company owner Ted Turner setting it up as a product placement deal for the then-upcoming RoboCop 2. Oddly, there’s dispute as to who exactly was wearing RoboCop’s suit that night. Many sources, including Cornette, claim actor Peter Weller actually returned to play RoboCop for WCW, but Sting would later say it wasn’t Weller. Either way, the chin does look similar.

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