Alex Wright: Where Is He Now?

In 1994, World Championship Wrestling was on the precipice of finally becoming a true contender to Vince McMahon and his World Wrestling Federation. With Eric Bischoff at the helm, WCW started making some big moves in the industry, most famously signing Hulk Hogan to a giant contract. As Hogan began bringing in many of his friends who had some name recognition, WCW was still struggling with newer talent and getting them over. In an effort to start breaking through in Europe, an area known for its vast fan support of professional wrestling that WCW had never been able to have an impact, they would sign the 18-year-old German second-generation wrestler Alex Wright.

Eric Bischoff would speak of Wright’s signing on Episode 52 of his podcast 83 Weeks:

“Ric Flair was a huge fan of Alex’s. I’m not sure how Alex ended up on our radar. Again at that time, a lot of our emphasis in terms of live events was on the European market. You know WWE, WWF at the time was making a lot of money in Europe. The domestic arena business was suffering in ’94. WWF was not doing very well, the numbers were declining if I recall correctly by 1994 for WWE house shows. Certainly the revenue was almost non-existent for house shows. So in hoping to build our international opportunities for live events and tours, we were looking for international wrestlers like Steven Regal, Dave Taylor, Fit Finlay, you know you name it. And Alex Wright was one of the wrestlers in Germany we were very excited about. He had a great look, he was very, very athletic and a good kid to work with. So everyone was excited about him but I think nobody more than Ric Flair. Ric Flair was a huge, huge supporter of Alex Wright.”

Wright was trained by his father, Steve Wright, a British wrestler. Before WCW, Wright worked in both Germany and Japan and would be sent to the WCW Power Plant for further seasoning before he would debut in September of 1994 on WCW Saturday Night, which at the time was the A show for WCW. His first notable feud would be with another young up and comer named Jean-Paul Levesque (whatever happened to that guy?) and would culminate at Starrcade 1994, the PPV debut for both performers. Wright would come out on top and go on an undefeated streak until Slamboree 1995 when he unsuccessfully challenged Arn Anderson for the WCW Television Championship.

Pic: [CrazyMax.Org]

Much of Das Wunderkind’s gimmick was that of a dancing raver, with his music being a techno theme, which unfortunately typecast him into the lower mid-card. In 1997 he would turn heel and get a few greater opportunities, including a short run with the WCW Television Championship. He would also partake in a small feud involving Steve McMichael, Debra and Goldberg. He would soon team with Disco Inferno as the Dancing Fools, leading to a feud with The British Bulldog and Jim Neidhart, which unfortunately culminated in the match where Bulldog took a bump on a hidden trap door for The Warrior’s entrance later in the night. 

Berlyn

In 1999 Wright would disappear before reemerging as Berlyn, a more sinister take on his German heritage. He had shaved his trademark hair into a short black mohawk and dressed in all black with a trenchcoat. This look would be controversial as it was considered too similar to the clothes worn by the Columbine killers which was still fresh at the time, in addition to the unfortunate Nazi-like presentation. In reality, the only thing that came out of the Berlyn run was the introduction of his bodyguard, The Wall, who would go onto have some minor success in the dying days of WCW.

Wright would return to working under his real name, with a shaved head and re-teamed with Disco Inferno (now known as Disqo) as the Boogie Knights. They would remain entangled through the end of WCW’s run, when the WWF purchased WCW in March of 2001.

As Wright was still under contract with AOL Time Warner, he opted to sit out his contract as he was disenchanted with the business due to the constant start and stop pushes, as well as all of the politicking that occurred in WCW.

Where Is He Now?

As mentioned, Wright was disillusioned with the business and chose to return home to Germany. He wanted to work on his secondary dream of opening a wrestling school, which would soon become a reality. In 2007 he would open his school, The Wright Stuff, which would quickly go on to become the premier wrestling school in Germany. Due to the success of the school, Wright would go on to open and run New European Championship Wrestling, known as NEW. The promotion would enjoy the same success as his school and quickly became the biggest promotion in Germany as well. 

Wright would commission the building of what became known as the NEW Hotspot in 2011, a training center and hall built specifically for housing wrestling events in Heßdorf, Germany. All of the NEW events would be held here until 2019 when plans for touring started to come into fruition. Obviously, due to the current Coronavirus outbreak, these plans are all on hold.

In terms of his career, Wright looks back very fondly on his time in WCW, specifically the early years. While it has been widely reported that he is retired, Wright stated in a 2013 interview with The Sports Courier that he has never officially retired.

“I never officially retired, it’s just a very long break right now”

Wright would also elaborate on why he never joined WWE, which was mostly due to burning out towards the tail end of WCW:

“When I sign a contract, I really want to give 180%. And if I can't give that, it's just not fair to the promotion and it's not fair to the fans and it's not fair to myself. When I step in the ring, I want to give 180%, for the promoter, for the fans and for myself. And if I can't do that, I just say, "Thank you very much."

He has made occasional appearances in the ring, including a notable attack at NEW Cold Open 2019, landing a devastating powerbomb, which you can see footage of below.

Wright has also made an appearance as a ‘Guest Coach’ at the WWE Performance Center and conducted a short interview about his time there, which makes sense as this was around the same time that WWE signed Wright’s most successful trainee, Imperium member Fabian Aichner.

“WWE sent me an invitation to Orlando to the WWE Performance Center as a guest trainer. The WWE Performance Center is just an amazing place. A great pool of talent here, the coaches are unbelievable with many years of experience and they really want to help the students and the new recruits to be a future WWE Superstar. Live your dream and believe in your dream.”

You can also find more information about Alex and his wrestling school The Wright Stuff at their official website.