We’re heading into the Wrestling Salvage Yard to look at Glacier, WCW’s cash-in on the Sub-Zero character from the Mortal Kombat series.
Blood Runs Cold
It was early 1996 when WCW fans started to hype videos for a new wrestler in the land “Where the Big Boys Play”. A lot of them looked like ads for a new show coming to TNT but it was for Glacier, a martial artist and wrestler with a cold/ice theme based on Sub-Zero.
Wrestling Salvage Yard: Glacier
When he finally showed up months later, he was given some easy pickings to showcase his ability. With the amount WCW sunk into his whole production and promotion, Glacier running through scrubs was a must. If he started eating losses before the gimmick failed, that would just been sabotage.
Eventually, Glacier was given two dedicated opponents in Mortis and Wrath with both being managed by James Vandenberg. It was a good step for the character and eventually, he gained an ally in Ernest “The Cat” Miller.
Following his feud with Mortis and Wrath, the steam was starting to run out for Glacier before it took a massive hit once his almost one year after running into Goldberg. He would enter other feuds including an interesting one with another wrestler with a martial arts background in Perry Saturn before the wind was all the way out of his sails.
Glacier was just a feature on WCW television before disappearing entirely in 1999 after scamming Kaz Hayashi into buying his gear.
Salvaging Glacier
Now, Glacier the wrestler—Ray Lloyd—was fine in-ring. It really depended on the opponent. Also, he was a gimmicky character that needed his own contained stories and foes. The Glacier gimmick was an action television show character. Everything should’ve had special effects and was pre-cinematic matches being a regular thing.
Another thing is that the Glacier gimmick was a little late as Mortal Kombat had been out for several years by then. The third game had come out the year before and it would receive a cartoon series on TNT competitor USA a week later.
It was pretty a gimmick that was both a little late following its inspiration and out of place in WCW. The competition to make the character look was definitely in WCW but it seemed like something WWE would’ve come up with if creative knew that martial arts was hot in media during the 90s.
So, could the Glacier gimmick be salvaged? In wrestling: possibly. While watching late WCW 1997, it occurred to me that maybe his villains should’ve the Dungeon of Doom since they were long clapped by Hulk Hogan and friends and were kind of a group of assorted midcarders and lower card talents.
The Dungeon really had no goal while WCW was big on pushing Glacier along until it just wasn’t working anymore. I will say Glacier definitely had potential as kids’ action show character if Turner had started making more children’s programming on TBS and TNT in the 90s.
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