I feel that if Watts' past comments didn't come back to bite him in the ass, he would have been one of the best bookers WCW ever had. Besides Crockett, Watts was the first guy WCW had in charge that had prior success running a territory. So, he was quite familiar with knowing how to run a successful company.
Hands down, the best thing he did was push Vader. Now, that introduces the element of a monster heel on top, since for the 4 years prior, you only really had Ric Flair as the top heel, without a gimmick that implies he's unstoppable. I think the reason for Vader's push was because Watts always felt that the business should have more natural athletes on top, which kind of coincides with him pushing Ron Simmons (that and the fact he was black).
Along with that, behind the scenes, Watts was initially brought in to cut costs. So basically, he began operating under a "budget", which saw the shows have a more intimate feel to them and, the one thing that got him PLENTY of heat, trying to do away with the guaranteed contracts, something that plagued WCW till the end. But you can't please everybody and obviously, Watts didn't please anybody with his decisions.
But, I guess his biggest problem was that he was stuck in the 80s and the business had passed him by. Not to mention, he was far from politically correct and working under a parent company like Turner wasn't going to work out good for him regardless. In my opinion, WCW needed a guy like Watts, who wouldn't take no shit and from his own personal experience, knew how to run on a budget and make for entertaining TV. But, when you ain't got anybody on your side, you're doomed.
I also heard that he was planning to turn Scott Steiner heel but Scott refused. And along with everybody else, wanted to cut their contracts (in the case of the Steiners, based on how often they were to work, they would be paid half of their original deal). One thing lead to another and Scott attacked him, Watts supposedly had a gun in his boot and the Steiners jumped ship. Not sure if the details are true but Rick confirmed in a shoot that Scott attacked Watts.
Also hated how he would force commentary to put over Erik Watts. No different than what Dusty would do with Dustin, other than the fact that Dustin was actually pretty good, while Erik was, well, Erik sucked.