All right, again because things are so crappy right now, I've decided to do some mind occupying writing right here on CalgaryPuck (Yeah, I stole that from Mick Foley for cheap heat but whatever).
Gimmicks are the backbone of wrestling, at least they were up until the attitude era when Vince decided that he wanted more shades of grey, and let wrestlers take their real life persona's and turn them to 10. Overnight things like evil clowns, and wrestlers from other dimensions vanished. Hunter Hurst Helmsley became HHH, the Undertaker shifted to the American Bad Ass, Mick Foley went from a demented basement dwelling cannibal to a goofy lovable everyman. Sadly for me, I sometimes miss the nonsensical characters, and outrageous storylines. So today, I'm going to in effect do two short lists. One will be some truly horrible gimmicks that didn't work, the other list will also be truly horrific gimmicks that somehow the wrestlers made work.
So lets get to it. As always any add ons or debates would be truly appreciated.
Truly Horrible gimmicks
1) The Shockmaster
WCW before the arrival of the NWO was a cesspool of horrible ideas and angle bills. You don't have to look any further then the Sting, Davey Boy Smith vs Vader and Sid Vicious feud that was promoted by a for real movie that WCW blew about $100,000 dollars on that featured Sid arriving on the beach in his wrestling gear and flip flops, a evil midget named Cheatum who blew up Sting's boat, and Sting and Davey playing with orphaned children for no apparent reason. Wait, in order to enjoy this you have to see it.
Anyways as this feud went along, it became the team of Vader and Harlem Heat versus Sting and Davey and they desperately needed a partner for a Wargames match, and hinted that they would reveal this partner on a Flair for the Gold. Enter poor Fred Ottman, He'd hit the upper midcard level in the WWE first as Tugboat, Hulk Hogan's buddy then later as 1/2 of the heel team of natural disasters as the Typhoon teaming up with the awesome Earthquake John Tenta.
He was due to be introduced as The Shockmaster, his big break in WCW. He was given a Stormtrooper helmet covered in Tin Foil and was going to do an awesome entrance by smashing through a wall like the koolaid guy while Ole Anderson did a ominous threatening voice over predicting doom and destructisity to the team of Vicious and Harlem Heat . . . at least that was the plan.
Unfortunately due to shoddy construction, he smash through the wall all right, before tripping and doing a header and scrambling to grab his helmet, all while Ole Anderson's voice boomed over the viewers TV speakers and Sting and Davey Boy tried valiantly and failed to keep their composure.
This however wasn't the end of the Shockmaster, as they later tried to roll out the Super Shockmaster also played by Ottman who was the nephew of the original Shockmaster. Ottman at that point threw up his hands and stated I'm outtie, and returned to familiar ground in the WWE.
To this day, this is considered to be a legendary entrance and the best example of how WCW just became a unbelievable example of bad booking, bad money spent and wasted opportunity.
2) The Red Roster - Terry Taylor
Come on, we all know that the WWF/WWE isn't immune to bad booking decisions. The Red Roster is the WWE's own version of the Shockmaster in a lot of ways.
Let me put this out there, Terry Taylor was a star on the rise when he signed with WWE. He could work, he could talk, he had the looks that made woman swoon. He was the total packager. Early in his WWE he formed a tag team with Sam Houston, Jake the Snake's brother and they had some success until Taylor tired of losing turned on Sam and hired Bobby the Brain as his manager. Now before I go on, I believe that Heenan was the best wrestler in the history of wrestler. He could turn piles of crap and no talent wrestlers into gold. I also want to state that sometimes I think Vince's misfires are due to inside jokes, ribs, self amusement or vindictiveness, just look at Dusty Rhodes WWE career for that.
Anyway's back to the Red Rooster. Heenan bragged that he could turn any novice lousy wrestler into a star and he would make Taylor strut like a little Red Roster. Vince jumped all over this and over time, Taylor would wear red tights, die the top of his hair red and spike it, and walk to the ring and strut around the ring like a Rooster while bobbing his head, meanwhile his entrance music was, and I'm not kidding you a bunch of rosters clucking. It was horrendous and no matter how valiantly Taylor tried, it was doomed to failure. It was just that bad.
Eventually The Rooster turned on Heenan and went face, instead of becoming the #### of the Walk, he simply faded from the WWF.
3) Seven - Dustin Rhodes says WTF
Look, there is no more brilliant performer then Dustin Rhodes. He was never a great wrestler, never had the body for wrestling, but after years of trying to be the wholesome cowboy themed face he went to WWF and became one of the most interesting characters in the history of the company in Goldust. At some point in his WWE career his character began to fade, bad decisions, personal demons, and a poor work ethic doomed him to midcard hell, and he decided to take the huge contract offered by WCW and jumped ship.
And then as the saying goes, shyte got weird. Again WCW showed that when you have Uncle Ted's checkbook wasted money means nothing, as they filmed a series of intro video's of Seven standing outside of Children's bedroom windows staring in.
Creepy? Yes. Slightly gross? Yes. I mean I can see the booking meeting. "Yeah we can make him a super heel right, I mean he was gold as a heel Gold dust". "That's right man and nobody is a bigger heel then a child molester", "You're brilliant man, lets spend a few hundred thousand on intro videos". "I love your face". Of course when Turner's Standards and Practices heard this they hit the roof and not in an excited this is money type of way. So on the night of Seven's in ring debut, he floated to the ring, ripped off his mask and Dustin made a shoot promo about how much gimmicks were stupid in Modern Wrestling and promptly became the American Nightmare a great name for a boring gimmick.
4) Beaver Cleavege - Incest is so cool.
WWE went all in on the hyper sex filled attitude era. Eventually everything became about sex. Now what's cooler then a young boys sexual fantasies? Why sexual fantasies about your mother. So when the moderately successful Headbangers had to be split up because Thrasher blew his knees out, Vince saw dollar signs.
Enter Beaver Cleavage, The WWE quickly filmed black and while videos of the daily life of the Beaver eating breakfast while staring at his mothers ample chest, while smirking at the camera. After the heat of the first few hot segments of mother Cleavage offering him mothers milk and lots of shots of her boobs cooler heads prevailed, and Beaver gave up on the gimmick introduced his mother as his real life girlfriend and then promptly moved into a phony domestic abuse angle. That's right, this was a triple word score of trash as it was a bad gimmick, and a bad angle to recover from the bad gimmick. After that poor Mosh ended up bouncing around, reunited the headbangers and faded into history.
5) Isaac Yankem/ Fake Diesel/Christmas Creature - Poor Glenn Jacobs, too smart to fail.
Ok, we all know that Glenn Jacobs became gold as Kane and is a sure fire hall of famer. But initially he continued to hit easily catch able fly balls when he tried to establish himself as a wrestler. He's been saddled with more bad gimmicks then anything else. The sad thing is this was a guy that really didn't need a gimmick beyond a complete a$$ kicker, He was legitimately talented and athletic and had a great look, but he's also the supreme company man who never said no.
Prior to joining the WWE he floated around the independents and settled in the USWA as the unibomber before becoming the most awesome gimmick in the history of history, he became the Christmas Creature, a towering monster wrapped in Christmas decorations. Now I believe this was a missed opportunity as I think they should have wrapped him in Christmas lights and had him wrestler with a 200 foot extension cable. That would have been gold.
However it didn't effect his career as he was signed by the WWE to be added to Jerry Lawler's feud with Bret Hart. Lawler who had earlier been fed him own feet by Bret had to get emergency dental work and stumbled upon a 6 foot 10 sadistic dentist with rotten teeth, who came to the ring to the sound of a dental drill. (Get it? Nobody else did) About the only thing that made that character even somewhat digestible is he got to work with the Hitman who dragged his green self to a decent match.
Jacob's convinced that he would be fired was put on the shelf again until the start of the Monday Night Wars when Hall and Nash left and found out that WWE still owned their names Diesel and Razor. So the WWE panicked as their ratings dropped and turned JR heel and he began to announce that Razor and Diesel had returned to the WWE and we saw videos of them wandering around the arena. Enter Jacobs and Rick Bognar who had done great work in Stampede Wrestling and Japan. They were given makeovers and bought out as fake Razor and Fake Diesel, and the fans promptly crapped all over this blatant bait and switch, and Jacobs was soon sent back to repackaging hell where they eventually stumbled on Kane, and the rest as they say is history.
Ok there are 5 really bad gimmicks in a world full of bad gimmicks. The Max Moons, Manteurs, Xanta Clause and others will have to wait or be added.
But what about those wrestlers that were saddled with horrific gimmicks that made them work?
1) Snitsky - Its still not my fault.
I put him here because it became a comedy or errors as Snisky originally came on board as a big fairly talented brawler and was bought into WWE as a Jobber to the stars because he had no real personality. Eventually his work looking at the lights for Kane was deemed good enough for a mini push, and he assaulted the big man and caused Lita to lose the baby (Probably demon, wait that would have been a hell of a gimmick) Snitsky shaken by this created his own catch phrase on the fly proclaimed that it wasn't his fault and would ride that for a long time. He also became a unintentional hall of fame comedy character by punting a fake baby into the crowd to the horror of the WWE universe.
Snitsky made a bad gimmick work by being more outlandish then even the Michael Cole being raped by Heidenreich who he feuded with later. The WWE decided to go weird with Snitsky giving him a rampant foot fetish before he eventually faded back to staring at the lights for everyone.
2) Eugene - Milking a bad gimmick to a push
Nick Dinsmore was a great wrestler, anyone that's seen his non WWE work would agree that he was a guy that was just very technically sound. So WWE in its infinite wisdom decided to bring him in as Eric Bishops special needs nephew who was a super fan. Dinsmore who back stage was a bit of a wildcard partier went all in as this character and made it work, moving into high profile feuds and partnerships with wrestlers like Hulk Hogan and became a baby face. Eugene worked because of Dinsmore's portrayal as a compete innocent high energy with the super power of a Special Needs person with super strength.
3) Santino Marelli
I love Anthony Carelli as a performer, he was a legit tough wrestler who was given the opportunity to come in as pretty much a one shot deal to upset the awesome Umanga as a fan coming out of the crowd during the WWE's Italy tour. Originally booked as a straight forward baby face, Santino went through more hilarious character changes and he made them work so well. From being a womanizer, growing a unibrow, stealing Cole's Subway sandwich. Inventing the worst finisher in the business (Cobra) and becoming his twin sister Santina Morella, Anthony created a long career out of nothing more then bad wrestling and genius comedy before sadly being forced to retire due to a neck injury.
I know there are a lot more in both categories, but I leave it to you all to fill in the blanks.
Honorable mentions Rosey the S.H.I.T, Doink the clown, The Boogey Man, Chris Kanyon, The Spirit Squad/Dolph Zigglar
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My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;
Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!
Last edited by CaptainCrunch; 04-21-2020 at 01:25 PM.
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They could have, but lets be honest, Mantaur didn't last long and it was a rib by Vince. TL Hopper had very little impact with that horrible gimmick.
I mean I would put Dusty as Virgil with Sapphire before either of those, again though the Dusty Rhodes thing showed how mean spirited Vince could be back in the day.
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My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;
Plus the ones that I picked did have a long lasting effect on the wrestling industry for the most part. Especially Shockmaster, SeVen, and even Beaver who are still remembered today.
As a add on with Mantaur, he returned to the WWE twice, once as Gold Dust's unamed body guard. Then as a member of the short lived Truth Commission.
He has recently wrestled at small shows as Mantaur.
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My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;
The best and worst wrestling lists - Gimmicks
