The No Limit Soldiers were a stable in World Championship Wrestling (WCW) that was created after rapper Master P signed with the company. The Soldiers feuded extensively with the West Texas Rednecks.
History[]
The relationship between WCW and Master P was supposed to be a symbiotic one, with WCW getting exposure with fans of hip hop music, and Master P getting his cousin Swoll a break in the wrestling business on top of getting paid.
Although the Soldiers were packaged as a face stable, they failed to connect with the WCW audience. In Master P's first and only appearance on WCW Television, (against the suggestion of the bookers and other wrestlers) he bullied heel wrestler Curt Hennig by rejecting a present he gave to Silkk The Shocker and then assaulting him with a birthday cake. This was perceived as a heel action by the fans and produced a lack of reaction due to confusion because Hennig was a hated heel, but being bullied by a group of people promoted as faces. Master P himself was disappointed with the reaction and blamed it on the racial makeup of the WCW audiences, claiming he would have gotten a bigger reaction from the crowd if more of "his people" were in attendance. P wouldn't be seen on TV to support the angle after the segment. It is reported that P received $200,000 per appearance for his short participation in WCW.
Hennig himself would put together his own small stable of "rap haters" called the West Texas Rednecks. Even with backup, the Soldiers outnumbered Hennig's group by nearly 2-1. Another setback for the Soldiers was that they consisted mainly of unestablished rookies and repackaged veterans, with very few members who connected with the fans. On the other end, the Rednecks played to the crowds with songs like "Rap is Crap" and winning matches against the odds. All these factors made the Rednecks the faces in the feud by the fans' estimation, especially in the South where WCW's core audience came from.
Aftermath[]
After their feud with the Rednecks, the Soldiers fell by the wayside as a highly utilized stable. Konnan and Mysterio moved on to form the Filthy Animals, while the rest of them appeared mainly on WCW Saturday Night and feuded with The First Family. Swoll and 4x4 would be used on prime time wrestling one more time, when they were one-time bodyguards for Dennis Rodman during his feud with "Macho Man" Randy Savage.
When WCW management decided not to renew the contracts of Swoll and 4x4 (Chase had inexplicably disappeared sometime earlier), they made the unusual decision to acknowledge this decision on the air, working it into the storyline of the feud between Armstrong and the First Family. BA returned to wrestling under his ringname Brad Armstrong, and 4x4 went on to become a part of Harlem Heat 2000 under the name Kash.
Championships[]
- World Championship Wrestling
- WCW Cruiserweight Championship (1 time) – Rey Misterio, Jr.
