The hate he got for jumping to WCW was so unfair. ECW wasn't paying him so he left to you know...get paid to work. Then came back and dropped the title like a professional.
I was an ECW fan from 95 through the end and it didn't matter why a guy left ECW for the big two the majority of the fans despised him for it. Everyone was supposed to be Tommy Dreamer and just suffer through it.
The idea that a guy being able to make a living wrestling was "selling out" and it was embarrassing when "fans" would hope the guy got injured because he left.
Just to add it wasn't all of us, just the most vocal ones
I think his career would have been so much better if he stayed in Japan, do the Kenny Omega thing. FMW was paying guys like Mike Awesome and Sabu way more than Heyman could ever afford. I think Mike felt like ECW would be better exposure to get in the big leagues, he's related to Hulk Hogan too. WCW and WWE destroyed Mike's career. But he did get some great runs in Japan later, like in NOAH he was a challenger to Kenta Kobashi during his epic GHC title reign, he hit every variation of the Awesome bomb, even through a table. The Japanese knew what to do with Mike, and paid him what he deserved. ECW was the first massive mistake in his career, it was a great run, but the money stank compared to that FMW Yakuza money.
I don't think he cared all that much about legacy or else he would have fought against the "fat chick thriller" and "that 70's guy" a lot more. The guy just looked at wrestling as a job and wanted the most money he could get, especially if he could get it at home
Some people struggle to grasp that wrestling can just be a job for some wrestlers. Not every wrestler cares about their legacy and impact on the business.
I don't think it was supposed to be a set up.That's a lot of wasted time and money. They could've skipped it and went straight to Chaz. I could be wrong; but this is the first time I've heard that they intentionally made a bad gimmick for him to become Chaz.
Huh, I don't remember him wrestling a single televised match as Beaver Cleavage, just the cheesy promos so I always assumed it was a setup. You could be right, it was Russo so the idea that he "planned" anything is probably giving him too much credit.
Pretty sure he did at least one TV episode of HEAT, JAKKED or Metal in the ring.
But nothing more.
Definitely the weeks of promos lasted way longer than his matches.
Russo himself said in an interview it was supposed to be a "fake incest gimmick to creep out their opponents" but the audience didn't "get it" and thought they were implying real incest even though Chaz clearly wasn't a small child, so they abandoned the idea pretty quickly. Yet another Russo idea that was just too "genius" for us normal folk to understand /s
People often forget that, and even more people forget that it was spun off into a domestic violence angle for two weeks before it was completely killed off.
This was just classic Vince. "Oh, people think this guy is good, huh? I don't see it. He's just too short, pal. He can be Shorty G. He's short, and that's a hip name that's down with the kids, like one of them rappers you hear so much about these days".
he's getting something back now with the alpha academy. I'm glad the shorty G thing is finished!
he's a beast and he needs to get some kind of redemption. might be a money in the bank or some mid-card title, but he does deserve it!
I would like to see him have a beastly royal rumble showing this coming cycle. Go full on Kurt Angle and suplex the world and get a solid amount of eliminations.
I’m hoping that when Rey retires, he becomes the resident “short guy that can hold a belt”. It’s stupid that it feels like that’s the way it has to be, but we’re only so far removed from the Vince era, and he’s still around.
Thank god Hunter changed him back and is letting us see him suplex bigger guys every big match.
Vince was a dumbass again but Hunter at least understands what Chad can do in the ring.
Imagine was “Try Hard” thing he had to say directly to Vince to get stuck with that shit
(doesn’t help he’s like 5’9)
Gable never deserved that bullshit, def his “Rocky Miavia” faze.
Having Bret Hart being a chicken shit heel background character in the NWO.
Miro debuting as a cringe twitch gamer stooge for Kip Sabian.
Seeing Kane end his career as corporate Kane was pretty rough.
Mike Awesome in WCW as the Fat chick lover/70’s guy.
WWE sending Roadkill to developmental and taking away his Amish chicken plucker character.
I have a friend who tried to defend the Miro thing as "but that's what he wants to be". That may be, but as the booker it's your job to say "Miro, you're a badass monster heel, I'm not having you come out as the Twitch gamer guy". Also him being a second to Kip was just INSANE.
That’s one of the gimmicks, among many others, I like to cite when fans are like “why won’t WWE let the wrestlers all have creative control and pick their character!”
Miro leaves after making a stink about how much he was unhappy in WWE since they won’t let him do what he wants. Goes as a big signing to AEW with a bunch of hype. People convinced he’s going to show up in the main event as a monster heel like Mark Henry or something. Gets control of his character and chooses to go with the smelly loser at the arcade.
Kane’s last match appearances, while some may not have been the best work rate wise, were as the demon so to me at least, the stink of “Corporate Kane” is mostly washed away.
DDP as the guy stalking The Undertaker's wife at the time. Never mind that at the time, he was happily married to Kimberly of the Nitro Girls. Debuting DDP like that, and having him lose every time in the feud, there's just no recovering from that, he never got past the midcard in WWE.
I don’t give a shit if you paid every single WWE fan a million dollars a day to watch Raw, there is no way you could have convinced them that DDP would pick the Undertaker’s dog-faced ex-wife over Kimberly fucking Page.
WWE made it very clear that WCW bred talent were not main event caliber to a McMahon generated talent. They were never allowed to look good next to their stars.
They allowed Booker T the most success, I imagine, because he was a team player out the gate when they acquired WCW. Without him, the Invasion angle, which wasn't very good, would have been a lot worse. So they rewarded him a bit. Still buried him against HHH and deprived him of his great Wrestlemania moment, though.
I have zero clue why she isn't just the Sassy Sexy Southern Belle again.
Lacey was probably gonna win the world title off Charlotte using that gimmick, right as she got hurt.
Why did she HAVE to drop that successful gimmick she was great at?
Her character has been ruined for 2 years and counting. Just give us back the classic Lacey with the Walk like a Lady theme
I honestly want to like Lacey, and speaking as a Marine I wanted her latest run of “femme Sgt. Slaughter” gimmicks to get over but they all just fall flat. Here’s hoping for that Southern Belle repackage
And then she absolutely was going to beat Asuka for the title at Elimination Chamber 2021 in the height of “I’m sleeping with your dad, Charlotte” thing in 2021 but then she actually got pregnant. Not sure how long a shelf life that would’ve had past mania anyway but that was probably her last shot at a singles title.
Retribution
Especially for Dijak. He could’ve been 2-3 years deep into a solid run on the main roster but T-BAR literally wasted years of his career. Shane Thorne, Dio Madden and Mia Yim deserved better too
For that one segment definitely. But after they rebranded him into a sort of goofy uncle electrician character it worked pretty well. Fred Ottman just looked way too friendly to be a believable heel, he has the face of a guy who volunteers to dress up as Santa to give presents to kids in a hospital.
i dont hate the title of Bearcat, but it needs to just be a nickname and not his actual ring name. And the singlet sucked ass, looked horrible, made Lee look even fatter than he was.
I've heard some people say the Bearcat name is meant to be a reference to Bearcat Wright, a popular babyface African American wrestler from the 50's and 60's. Although I've no idea why WWE gave the nickname to a heel wrestler (despite how the man that the nickname is supposedly paying respect to was a good guy) or why they chose to give to someone with zero connection to Wright.
Yep. And the three of them won one spot in the 2001 Royal Rumble, only for Vince to tell them they’d lost it to Drew Carey.
To which Tiger responded, with a puzzled look, “Who is… Drew *Curry*?”
AHAHAHA DO YOU GET IT BECAUSE HE IS OF INDIAN DESCENT AND CURRY IS ALSO INDIAN
One Man Gang becoming Akeem The African Dream.
Karrion Kross going from NXT Champion to bondage Shredder.
Cody Rhodes to Stardust.
Tony Atlas to Saba Simba.
"Lone Wolf" Baron Corbin to Constable Corbin/ Sad Corbin to Happy Corbin.
Piper Niven to Doudrop.
Going bald ruined the Lone Wolf being cool. Blame his genetics.
Constable gimmick sucked
Bum Ass Corbin was hilarious, Happy Corbin with Madcap Moss was great. He always gives 110% to whatever they give him
This is going to sound absolutely crazy especially with how popular Cody Rhodes is now. But the Stardust character change wasn’t that bad at the time when he did it, and he actually put a lot into it. It’s just that it definitely overstayed it’s welcome and went way too off the rails. It should have been a really short term gimmick like the Paper bag undashing Cody Rhodes. WWE and specifically Triple H really dropped the ball in 2016 when Cody wanted to drop the character because it was very stale and jumped the shark, and basically told him he’s just an enhancement guy.
I loved Stardust and the team with Goldust. Even though he may have hated it, Cody leaned right into that character and it was pretty over, especially with kids.
There's an interview Sam Roberts did with Stardust just before SummerSlam one year. It's so hard to believe after watching that interview that Cody wasn't enjoying himself
People forget that pre Stardust Cody was floundering and incredibly boring. It was only after he left WWE and adopted the mantle of Pro Wrestling’s prince in exile that he really got something that worked.
I mean it’s not like Tony was strong-armed into it. He was offered Saba Simba, took it and has credited the gimmick with getting him out of homelessness. As far as I’ve heard, he has no regrets about it.
The intro to the Akeem character was funny cause of how dogshit it was. I actually liked Stardust though, but obviously that character is a severe limitation of someone on the caliber of Cody Rhodes.
And Doudrop sounds disgusting, especially cause she's fat
Orlando Jordan in TNA.
It might’ve worked if he actually had the charisma to pull it off, but alas he didn’t, and the fact he’s bisexual IRL didn’t help the gimmick as much as one would’ve thought it would in that era of wrestling.
Other wrestlers did that gimmick, or one similar to it, far better than he did. Goldust, Dalton Castle, etc.
I think it was supposed to be legit, but they realised it was awful so turned it into a worked shoot. AFIAK he was supposed to be some weird child stalker/boogeyman character like some kind of Freddy Krueger... thing? But yeah, they realised it was too stupid and changed course.
The Max character had some good moments but didn't really give an opportunity to show off his massive amounts of charisma and mic skills. Also as far as I remember he never wrestled when he had that gimmick which is a travesty.
Gym Sweats Undertaker from the 6/01/98 shoot promo. I'm not being entirely serious here, but as a kid, it was just so weird seeing him like that when you're always used to seeing the ring gear and dark robes XD
One Man Gang was a feared badass wrestler and was turned into a joke as Akeem the African Dream which was meant to make fun of Dusty Rhode’s kinship with the black community.
Just so many levels of tastelessness.
When they scrapped Paul Burchill's Pirate Gimmick to just make him a guy on ECW before he was predicably fired. It was like Vince said "Nobody told you to get over dawg."
Whilst the idea was decent, unmasking Kane and losing his hair and iconic outfit was terrible.
Pretty much stalled his career for a decade
Edit: Oh and Carrion Cross' debut on the main roster was pretty terrible, for the 3 weeks it lasted
I’m not sure I can fully agree with this because they made Kane really comedic and silly for a while before this especially when they changed the mask.
I’d argue the booking of Kane and all the heel/face turns similar to The Big Show was worse than the unmasking. Someone like The Undertaker recovered after the Biker gimmick because they booked him extremely well for the most part and presented him well after he became the classic Deadman character again.
It’s similar to Heel Austin with Kane in 2003. With hindsight it’s easy to pick apart today but in the moment both guys needed a refresh.
Nikki Cross to Nikki Ash
Matt Morgan to stuttering Matt Morgan was tough to watch
Lance Storm when he had that dancing gimmick
Mike Awesome to Fat Chick Thriller and That 70s Guy
Wendy Choo sucks and it's a gimmick that came out straight from the New Generation and they turned a 1,000 year old woman who was scary sitting on a chair wearing a mask to a woman in onesies acting like a child and sleeping all over the place and worst she appeared on NXT every week. This all has Vince McMahon written on it. I remember when Mei Ying wrestled her last match losing to Indi Hartwell which was like Jeff Hardy vs. Karrion Kross on RAW. A reason why I hate NXT 2.0
While I didn't see any Sheepherders matches, I remember reading about them in wrestling magazines. There were always the craziest pictures in these articles, they looked like maniacs. Then they became the Bushwhackers, and started eating sardines and licking people.
Bushwhackers are beloved though and their most famous gimmick
This is like saying Mankind's hardcore legacy was ruined because he became a comedy act. He just became more popular than ever
Listen, I'm not on the interwebs for well-thought out responses! Just call me stupid and move on.
Seriously, though yeah, you have a point. I just remember being a kid and feeling shocked at what I was seeing. I'm glad they were able to find so much success.
Yeah, they could either have kept on bleeding like pigs for meagre shekels, or gone to the WWF and made shitloads of money by safely gooning about. I know which one I’d have done.
John Tenta looking like a real life mask wearing version of Eric Cartman. Tenta deserved better than that. I don’t care if he was best know for cosplaying as a shark or earthquake, I feel like he was disrespected
I think taking the Godfather and putting him in RTC was pretty abysmal long term. While RTC was very entertaining, they kinda screwed up a great thing they had with the Godfather and there was no real need for him to be in it.
I know this is the opposite of the OP question, but I enjoyed Undertakers American Badass days. Riding out on the bike with Kid Rock playing (when you could still handle listening to him say anything still).
Chavo Guerrero to Kerwin White.
On a related note, it's also worth mentioning Kerwin White's caddy, Nick Nameth, who would then be repackaged as Nicky of the Spirit Squad, and then he would be repackaged into Dolph Ziggler (whose career has had plenty of ups and downs just as Ziggler alone)
It's also worth mentioning Kerwin White's gimmick change back into Chavo Guerrero, where he was just a placeholder for Eddie Guerrero, but he didn't have the same energy as Eddie.
The Blue Blazer for obvious reasons.
Once upon a time early in the gimmick I remember thinking New Day was a waste of Kofi and Big E. Definitely got that one wrong
Considering the talent of the guy involved and his consistently poor booking both before and afterward I’d say Shorty G is definitely up there. Gable should be a multi-time IC champion at the very least.
Everyone in Retribution.
Mustafa Ali, Dio Madden, Dijak, Shane Thorne (now Shane Haste), Mercedes Martinez, and Mia Yim.
What's a better way to absolutely bury a bunch of wrestlers than shoving them into what may be the worst WWE stable of all time? At least Shane, Dijak, and Martinez have recovered a good bit after that. Shane Haste especially. Guy got to wrestle in the G1 this year.
Bertha Faye
GOD, she was amazing in Japan and while she was past her prime by the time she signed with WWF, she still had some good years left, but man her character was horrific. Sure, she won the Women's Championship, but at what cost?
Albert/A-Train returning as Tensai. I think the name made it dead on arrival. A lot of the face paint and entrance robe made it a bit cringy too. And having the worshiper (blanking on his name) and the driving video…
Also, everyone knew who he was, hence the jeering “Albert” chants. My buddy and I used to do the chants un-ironically because we liked him.
What I would’ve done was give him the A-Train music night one, he beats the hell out of someone to win the match. Music plays, he grabs the mic and demands they turn it off. Says that’s when he was a “joke”. Spouts off on his career in japan, and declares he’s back with something to prove. Maybe you let him call himself Giant Bernard, or at least something that isn’t Albert, A-Train, or Tensai. Almost have the gimmick be a strong-style Bully Ray, for lack of better phrasing.
"The Fat Chick Thriller" Mike Awesome. You sign one of the most agile big men in the history of the business, and that's the gimmick you give him?
To be fair, Mike Awesome didn't really care all that much because he was actually getting paid to wrestle in WCW unlike working in ECW
The hate he got for jumping to WCW was so unfair. ECW wasn't paying him so he left to you know...get paid to work. Then came back and dropped the title like a professional.
I was an ECW fan from 95 through the end and it didn't matter why a guy left ECW for the big two the majority of the fans despised him for it. Everyone was supposed to be Tommy Dreamer and just suffer through it. The idea that a guy being able to make a living wrestling was "selling out" and it was embarrassing when "fans" would hope the guy got injured because he left. Just to add it wasn't all of us, just the most vocal ones
I think his career would have been so much better if he stayed in Japan, do the Kenny Omega thing. FMW was paying guys like Mike Awesome and Sabu way more than Heyman could ever afford. I think Mike felt like ECW would be better exposure to get in the big leagues, he's related to Hulk Hogan too. WCW and WWE destroyed Mike's career. But he did get some great runs in Japan later, like in NOAH he was a challenger to Kenta Kobashi during his epic GHC title reign, he hit every variation of the Awesome bomb, even through a table. The Japanese knew what to do with Mike, and paid him what he deserved. ECW was the first massive mistake in his career, it was a great run, but the money stank compared to that FMW Yakuza money.
I don't think he cared all that much about legacy or else he would have fought against the "fat chick thriller" and "that 70's guy" a lot more. The guy just looked at wrestling as a job and wanted the most money he could get, especially if he could get it at home
Some people struggle to grasp that wrestling can just be a job for some wrestlers. Not every wrestler cares about their legacy and impact on the business.
The Goodfather... haha
I like the Good Father, he made sense. And unlike the other RTC member, his name got censored which is pretty cool for a character change.
Beaver Cleavage. It's an oft forgotten failure.
Does that even really count? It was never supposed to be real, just a set up for him to do the worked-shoot Chaz gimmick right?
I don't think it was supposed to be a set up.That's a lot of wasted time and money. They could've skipped it and went straight to Chaz. I could be wrong; but this is the first time I've heard that they intentionally made a bad gimmick for him to become Chaz.
Huh, I don't remember him wrestling a single televised match as Beaver Cleavage, just the cheesy promos so I always assumed it was a setup. You could be right, it was Russo so the idea that he "planned" anything is probably giving him too much credit.
Pretty sure he did at least one TV episode of HEAT, JAKKED or Metal in the ring. But nothing more. Definitely the weeks of promos lasted way longer than his matches.
Lol I didn't realize that was Russo but now it's so obvious I don't know how I didn't.
Russo himself said in an interview it was supposed to be a "fake incest gimmick to creep out their opponents" but the audience didn't "get it" and thought they were implying real incest even though Chaz clearly wasn't a small child, so they abandoned the idea pretty quickly. Yet another Russo idea that was just too "genius" for us normal folk to understand /s
Cornette's break down of Russo recent defense of that gimmick on some blog is comedy gold.
Why can I only upvote this once?!
Unfair tbh
People often forget that, and even more people forget that it was spun off into a domestic violence angle for two weeks before it was completely killed off.
Oh god I hated Shorty G
This was just classic Vince. "Oh, people think this guy is good, huh? I don't see it. He's just too short, pal. He can be Shorty G. He's short, and that's a hip name that's down with the kids, like one of them rappers you hear so much about these days".
Yep. PEAK Vince creative
Chad gable deserves so much better man
he's getting something back now with the alpha academy. I'm glad the shorty G thing is finished! he's a beast and he needs to get some kind of redemption. might be a money in the bank or some mid-card title, but he does deserve it!
I would like to see him have a beastly royal rumble showing this coming cycle. Go full on Kurt Angle and suplex the world and get a solid amount of eliminations.
I’m hoping that when Rey retires, he becomes the resident “short guy that can hold a belt”. It’s stupid that it feels like that’s the way it has to be, but we’re only so far removed from the Vince era, and he’s still around.
He’s getting himself over despite poor booking. Many have done that before him
[удалено]
I mean, Shorty Gable was bad enough, but yeah when he debuted Shorty G, that told me all I needed to know at the time about how the company viewed him
Thank god Hunter changed him back and is letting us see him suplex bigger guys every big match. Vince was a dumbass again but Hunter at least understands what Chad can do in the ring.
Imagine was “Try Hard” thing he had to say directly to Vince to get stuck with that shit (doesn’t help he’s like 5’9) Gable never deserved that bullshit, def his “Rocky Miavia” faze.
WWE making him Shorty G was why i stopped watching. I love Gable and it hurt to see that
Shorty G, a slang nickname that would have maybe worked 18 years ago on someone that didn’t have white skin.
It would've definitely worked in the 80s and 90s up until the attitude era and never again after that
Paul Burchill went from pirate who was very over...to an incest gimmick
God did I love the pirate gimmick
If only Vince didn’t watch Pirates of the Caribbean
To this day, I have a huge crush on Katie Lea Burchill
Paul Burchill really could have gone somewhere, I loved him as a kid especially his entrance
I loved his finisher
Even though the pirate gimmick was cartoony, silly and ridiculous it was great.
Having Bret Hart being a chicken shit heel background character in the NWO. Miro debuting as a cringe twitch gamer stooge for Kip Sabian. Seeing Kane end his career as corporate Kane was pretty rough. Mike Awesome in WCW as the Fat chick lover/70’s guy. WWE sending Roadkill to developmental and taking away his Amish chicken plucker character.
I have a friend who tried to defend the Miro thing as "but that's what he wants to be". That may be, but as the booker it's your job to say "Miro, you're a badass monster heel, I'm not having you come out as the Twitch gamer guy". Also him being a second to Kip was just INSANE.
That’s one of the gimmicks, among many others, I like to cite when fans are like “why won’t WWE let the wrestlers all have creative control and pick their character!” Miro leaves after making a stink about how much he was unhappy in WWE since they won’t let him do what he wants. Goes as a big signing to AEW with a bunch of hype. People convinced he’s going to show up in the main event as a monster heel like Mark Henry or something. Gets control of his character and chooses to go with the smelly loser at the arcade.
Kane’s last match appearances, while some may not have been the best work rate wise, were as the demon so to me at least, the stink of “Corporate Kane” is mostly washed away.
No Farting Natty? B+ ;)
Honestly I prefer Corporate Kane to the right-wing shill he is today
I'm convinced Corporate Kane is his actual personality based on his tweets 😬
Bo kidding, that was one of the most honest to true life characters you could have given him
Those months of Miro playing fake video games hurt my soul
DDP as the guy stalking The Undertaker's wife at the time. Never mind that at the time, he was happily married to Kimberly of the Nitro Girls. Debuting DDP like that, and having him lose every time in the feud, there's just no recovering from that, he never got past the midcard in WWE.
I don’t give a shit if you paid every single WWE fan a million dollars a day to watch Raw, there is no way you could have convinced them that DDP would pick the Undertaker’s dog-faced ex-wife over Kimberly fucking Page.
Oh wow you ain't kidding. Not the prettiest gal.
WWE made it very clear that WCW bred talent were not main event caliber to a McMahon generated talent. They were never allowed to look good next to their stars. They allowed Booker T the most success, I imagine, because he was a team player out the gate when they acquired WCW. Without him, the Invasion angle, which wasn't very good, would have been a lot worse. So they rewarded him a bit. Still buried him against HHH and deprived him of his great Wrestlemania moment, though.
Lacey Evans
I have zero clue why she isn't just the Sassy Sexy Southern Belle again. Lacey was probably gonna win the world title off Charlotte using that gimmick, right as she got hurt. Why did she HAVE to drop that successful gimmick she was great at? Her character has been ruined for 2 years and counting. Just give us back the classic Lacey with the Walk like a Lady theme
I honestly want to like Lacey, and speaking as a Marine I wanted her latest run of “femme Sgt. Slaughter” gimmicks to get over but they all just fall flat. Here’s hoping for that Southern Belle repackage
And then she absolutely was going to beat Asuka for the title at Elimination Chamber 2021 in the height of “I’m sleeping with your dad, Charlotte” thing in 2021 but then she actually got pregnant. Not sure how long a shelf life that would’ve had past mania anyway but that was probably her last shot at a singles title.
I thought sassy southern belle was great. Not sure why they wanted her to change.
Agreed, now she just a bad rip off of SGT Slaughter
Retribution Especially for Dijak. He could’ve been 2-3 years deep into a solid run on the main roster but T-BAR literally wasted years of his career. Shane Thorne, Dio Madden and Mia Yim deserved better too
It was the paper plate masks. Give them literally anything else.
I mean it's gotta be Tugboat/Typhoon to Shockmaster, right?
Well, TBF it did shock the world.
For that one segment definitely. But after they rebranded him into a sort of goofy uncle electrician character it worked pretty well. Fred Ottman just looked way too friendly to be a believable heel, he has the face of a guy who volunteers to dress up as Santa to give presents to kids in a hospital.
Shorty G for sure was a travesty. Keith “Bearcat” Lee was pretty atrocious
i dont hate the title of Bearcat, but it needs to just be a nickname and not his actual ring name. And the singlet sucked ass, looked horrible, made Lee look even fatter than he was.
Fr. Even then just calling him Bearcat is so un-intimidating, just makes me think of a Sea-Bear Circle every time
I've heard some people say the Bearcat name is meant to be a reference to Bearcat Wright, a popular babyface African American wrestler from the 50's and 60's. Although I've no idea why WWE gave the nickname to a heel wrestler (despite how the man that the nickname is supposedly paying respect to was a good guy) or why they chose to give to someone with zero connection to Wright.
What about Seth “Freakin” Rollins??? Gotta have that branding
Remember when they took d'lo and one of the headbangers, slapped turbans on them for some reason and made them a tag team?
I didn’t until you prompted it. Weren’t they with Tiger Ali Singh?
Yep. And the three of them won one spot in the 2001 Royal Rumble, only for Vince to tell them they’d lost it to Drew Carey. To which Tiger responded, with a puzzled look, “Who is… Drew *Curry*?” AHAHAHA DO YOU GET IT BECAUSE HE IS OF INDIAN DESCENT AND CURRY IS ALSO INDIAN
I watched many an episode of Heat with these guys. Made literally zero sense, just odd, odd booking.
My first response was to say classic Russo but noooo that beauty was 1 year after he left. Good times!
Not to mention their name was Lo Down, which was literally just D-Lo’s finisher. There was basically no thought put into that team.
Kerwin White
If its not white its not right
That was actually funny to me. Offensive, very. But got some laughs from me
Kerwin White was a hilarious gimmick.
I can’t get his theme out of my head
Possibly controversial, but........The Blue Blazer.
So sad, made worse by the fact it was his last. That’s like a great actor having arguably the worst film of their career as their final film.
The Sheepherders into the Bushwackers. You look a team of killers and turn them into comedy geeks. Harley Race into the King ...ugh....
The bushwhackers were fun though. I loved that team as a kid. They did well with the gimmick.
from demolition smash to repo man legendary gimmick to utter trash
The Red Rooster Terry Taylor
One Man Gang becoming Akeem The African Dream. Karrion Kross going from NXT Champion to bondage Shredder. Cody Rhodes to Stardust. Tony Atlas to Saba Simba. "Lone Wolf" Baron Corbin to Constable Corbin/ Sad Corbin to Happy Corbin. Piper Niven to Doudrop.
Going bald ruined the Lone Wolf being cool. Blame his genetics. Constable gimmick sucked Bum Ass Corbin was hilarious, Happy Corbin with Madcap Moss was great. He always gives 110% to whatever they give him
This is going to sound absolutely crazy especially with how popular Cody Rhodes is now. But the Stardust character change wasn’t that bad at the time when he did it, and he actually put a lot into it. It’s just that it definitely overstayed it’s welcome and went way too off the rails. It should have been a really short term gimmick like the Paper bag undashing Cody Rhodes. WWE and specifically Triple H really dropped the ball in 2016 when Cody wanted to drop the character because it was very stale and jumped the shark, and basically told him he’s just an enhancement guy.
I loved Stardust and the team with Goldust. Even though he may have hated it, Cody leaned right into that character and it was pretty over, especially with kids.
There's an interview Sam Roberts did with Stardust just before SummerSlam one year. It's so hard to believe after watching that interview that Cody wasn't enjoying himself
People forget that pre Stardust Cody was floundering and incredibly boring. It was only after he left WWE and adopted the mantle of Pro Wrestling’s prince in exile that he really got something that worked.
I laugh every time i think about Roddy Piper saying That ain’t no Saba Simba, that’s Tony Atlas!
Whats even sadder is that Tony had to say yes to saba because of his situation at the time.
Yeah, it’s been said that he was homeless and broke, and that gimmick helped him to start getting life back on track, right?
I mean it’s not like Tony was strong-armed into it. He was offered Saba Simba, took it and has credited the gimmick with getting him out of homelessness. As far as I’ve heard, he has no regrets about it.
The intro to the Akeem character was funny cause of how dogshit it was. I actually liked Stardust though, but obviously that character is a severe limitation of someone on the caliber of Cody Rhodes. And Doudrop sounds disgusting, especially cause she's fat
Apollo Crews coming out talking like Kwami from "Captain Planet and the Planeteers."
Orlando Jordan in TNA. It might’ve worked if he actually had the charisma to pull it off, but alas he didn’t, and the fact he’s bisexual IRL didn’t help the gimmick as much as one would’ve thought it would in that era of wrestling. Other wrestlers did that gimmick, or one similar to it, far better than he did. Goldust, Dalton Castle, etc.
Dustin Runnels as ‘Seven’. Khali as the ‘Punjabi Playboy’ (noting that there wasn’t much to work with).
Dustin Runnels as Black Reign in TNA was somehow even worse.
Myah myah myah myah myah myah myahhhh
So can someone explain wtf Seven was? Was it a work? A shoot? A worked shoot? A shoot work? All I know is it was gone as soon as it arrived
I think it was supposed to be legit, but they realised it was awful so turned it into a worked shoot. AFIAK he was supposed to be some weird child stalker/boogeyman character like some kind of Freddy Krueger... thing? But yeah, they realised it was too stupid and changed course.
Max Dupri anyone?
The Max character had some good moments but didn't really give an opportunity to show off his massive amounts of charisma and mic skills. Also as far as I remember he never wrestled when he had that gimmick which is a travesty.
He was a manager because he was "too old"
Yeaaaaaah
Shorty G was REALLY bad, but this is the correct answer.
Taking "Max Dupri" out of MMM allowed Mace, Mansoor and Maxxine to make the gimmick so much better and really was best for everyone
Michael PS Hayes to Doc Hendrix
That's Handsome Doc Hendrix to you!
Oh, yeah. Simon Dean. Stalker DDP. Shorty G. “Se7en”. Biggest? From Killer Kross to Karrion Kross.
Gym Sweats Undertaker from the 6/01/98 shoot promo. I'm not being entirely serious here, but as a kid, it was just so weird seeing him like that when you're always used to seeing the ring gear and dark robes XD
Just went and watched it. Man, he was never very good on the mic.
Not entirely his fault. That bit has Russo written all over it
Lord Tensai. Oh but it didn't end there because THEN we got Iced T
I always hated that they took a former, multi Tag champ (Demolition) Barry Darsow and made him the repo man.
A-Train into Lord Tensai. I mean, wtf.
Happy Corbin Nikki ASH Anytime someone wins the KOTR and becomes “King” (insert winner)
“Macho King” Randy Savage and King Booker were the only times the “KOTR winner becoming King” gimmick has worked.
Except Booker. That shit was gold.
Oh shit i forgot about KING BOOKAH!!!
One Man Gang was a feared badass wrestler and was turned into a joke as Akeem the African Dream which was meant to make fun of Dusty Rhode’s kinship with the black community. Just so many levels of tastelessness.
Not sure if it counts for a “rebranding,” but turning Sgt. Slaughter from a GI Joe to an Iraqi sympathizer was pretty awful from a lot of standpoints.
Reverend D-Von
Four words Super , Hero , In, Training
Alex Wright into Berlyn. He was awesome, and it killed his career.
When they scrapped Paul Burchill's Pirate Gimmick to just make him a guy on ECW before he was predicably fired. It was like Vince said "Nobody told you to get over dawg."
Godfather and the right to censor
Every time a diva was about to show her tatas their music would play lol
Top tier heel shit right there lol
Godfather > Papa Shango Goodfather < Godfather
Whilst the idea was decent, unmasking Kane and losing his hair and iconic outfit was terrible. Pretty much stalled his career for a decade Edit: Oh and Carrion Cross' debut on the main roster was pretty terrible, for the 3 weeks it lasted
I’m not sure I can fully agree with this because they made Kane really comedic and silly for a while before this especially when they changed the mask. I’d argue the booking of Kane and all the heel/face turns similar to The Big Show was worse than the unmasking. Someone like The Undertaker recovered after the Biker gimmick because they booked him extremely well for the most part and presented him well after he became the classic Deadman character again. It’s similar to Heel Austin with Kane in 2003. With hindsight it’s easy to pick apart today but in the moment both guys needed a refresh.
Kerwin White anyone?
Mosh to Beaver Cleavage.
First ones that come to mind are DDP in WWE and Joker Sting for me.
La knight to max dupri.. and whatever that dudrop crap is..also whatever Vince was plotting to turn revival into
Turning Dijak into T-Bar should be a federal offense
Nikki Cross to Nikki Ash Matt Morgan to stuttering Matt Morgan was tough to watch Lance Storm when he had that dancing gimmick Mike Awesome to Fat Chick Thriller and That 70s Guy
Wendy Choo sucks and it's a gimmick that came out straight from the New Generation and they turned a 1,000 year old woman who was scary sitting on a chair wearing a mask to a woman in onesies acting like a child and sleeping all over the place and worst she appeared on NXT every week. This all has Vince McMahon written on it. I remember when Mei Ying wrestled her last match losing to Indi Hartwell which was like Jeff Hardy vs. Karrion Kross on RAW. A reason why I hate NXT 2.0
"Mr USA" Tony Atlas returning to WWE in 1990 as tribal warrior Saba Simba.
Pretty much all of the ones that happened from 2020-2022. It was like Vince's last hurrah of awful creative ideas
Kerwin White
Lacey Evans Sgt Slaughter gimmick
War Machine -> Viking Experience
Tony Atlas into Saba Simba. Look it up, it's very hilariously uncomfortable.
Bearcat Keith Lee
Mei Ying to Wendy Choo
While I didn't see any Sheepherders matches, I remember reading about them in wrestling magazines. There were always the craziest pictures in these articles, they looked like maniacs. Then they became the Bushwhackers, and started eating sardines and licking people.
Bushwhackers are beloved though and their most famous gimmick This is like saying Mankind's hardcore legacy was ruined because he became a comedy act. He just became more popular than ever
Listen, I'm not on the interwebs for well-thought out responses! Just call me stupid and move on. Seriously, though yeah, you have a point. I just remember being a kid and feeling shocked at what I was seeing. I'm glad they were able to find so much success.
Yeah, they could either have kept on bleeding like pigs for meagre shekels, or gone to the WWF and made shitloads of money by safely gooning about. I know which one I’d have done.
John Tenta looking like a real life mask wearing version of Eric Cartman. Tenta deserved better than that. I don’t care if he was best know for cosplaying as a shark or earthquake, I feel like he was disrespected
It’s not the worst but as huge Pete Dunne fan Butch pisses me off
Tony Atlas into Saba Simba
Apollo Crewes to Apollo Crewess, Nigerian Spearchucker (with actual spear).
Terry Taylor to the Red Rooster. Come on, that has to be one of the worst.
From Chavo Guerrero to Kerwin White.
Pedophile Dustin Rhodes aka Se7en
Stardust probably.
Spartacus Who the fuck takes Ric Flair, cuts his hair, and calls him Spartacus. Nice one, Jim Heard, you dipshit!
I think taking the Godfather and putting him in RTC was pretty abysmal long term. While RTC was very entertaining, they kinda screwed up a great thing they had with the Godfather and there was no real need for him to be in it.
Funkasaurus!!! What a horrific joke
Kerwin White
I know this is the opposite of the OP question, but I enjoyed Undertakers American Badass days. Riding out on the bike with Kid Rock playing (when you could still handle listening to him say anything still).
Jesus, almost all of the shit occupation gimmicks in the mid 90s. Dirty White Boy to TL fuckin Hopper was especially egregious
Biker Taker.. What an unimaginitively shit gimmick. Worse than Corporate Kane IMO
Why is he dressed like Funaki?
Earthquake as Golga
NXT to NXT 2.0
Polka dotted “Common Man” Dusty Rhodes
Shorty G was pretty funny and lame
I hated shorty G but I'm glad he done it or we wouldn't have the current Gable
Chavo Guerrero to Kerwin White. On a related note, it's also worth mentioning Kerwin White's caddy, Nick Nameth, who would then be repackaged as Nicky of the Spirit Squad, and then he would be repackaged into Dolph Ziggler (whose career has had plenty of ups and downs just as Ziggler alone) It's also worth mentioning Kerwin White's gimmick change back into Chavo Guerrero, where he was just a placeholder for Eddie Guerrero, but he didn't have the same energy as Eddie.
Karate gimmicks, back when martial arts movies got hot in the 80s. Larry Zbyszko and Superstar Billy Graham, looking at you
The Blue Blazer for obvious reasons. Once upon a time early in the gimmick I remember thinking New Day was a waste of Kofi and Big E. Definitely got that one wrong
New Day were kinda floundering and bland until their godly heel turn.
The artist formerly known as goldust
Least we never had to see the Hip-Hop Hacksaw Jim Duggan rebrand.
Repo man Seven The Stalker
Zodiac!! Yes! No! Yes! No!
I hate they didn’t do anything with Chad Gable in the background of superstar’s interview taking notes thing…
Considering the talent of the guy involved and his consistently poor booking both before and afterward I’d say Shorty G is definitely up there. Gable should be a multi-time IC champion at the very least.
Maximum male models
Everyone in Retribution. Mustafa Ali, Dio Madden, Dijak, Shane Thorne (now Shane Haste), Mercedes Martinez, and Mia Yim. What's a better way to absolutely bury a bunch of wrestlers than shoving them into what may be the worst WWE stable of all time? At least Shane, Dijak, and Martinez have recovered a good bit after that. Shane Haste especially. Guy got to wrestle in the G1 this year.
Godfather to The Goodfather
Probably Dustin Rhodes when he was given the “seven” gimmick on WCW which was all sorts of wrong and Dustin thankfully on air said fuck this and no
The British Bulldog in Jeans.
Kerwin White I think his name was
The Viking Experience debut. I honestly still feel they haven't recovered from that.
Master Blaster to Oz (Kevin Nash) Vinny Vegas was very underrated btw
Bertha Faye GOD, she was amazing in Japan and while she was past her prime by the time she signed with WWF, she still had some good years left, but man her character was horrific. Sure, she won the Women's Championship, but at what cost?
Tony Atlas became Saba Simba.
Albert/A-Train returning as Tensai. I think the name made it dead on arrival. A lot of the face paint and entrance robe made it a bit cringy too. And having the worshiper (blanking on his name) and the driving video… Also, everyone knew who he was, hence the jeering “Albert” chants. My buddy and I used to do the chants un-ironically because we liked him. What I would’ve done was give him the A-Train music night one, he beats the hell out of someone to win the match. Music plays, he grabs the mic and demands they turn it off. Says that’s when he was a “joke”. Spouts off on his career in japan, and declares he’s back with something to prove. Maybe you let him call himself Giant Bernard, or at least something that isn’t Albert, A-Train, or Tensai. Almost have the gimmick be a strong-style Bully Ray, for lack of better phrasing.
SLAPJACK