10 Most Pointless Gimmicks In Wrestling History

Now, I know what you€™re thinking €“ yet another article about crap wrestling characters. It€™s going to rant on and on about Oz, the Yeti, the Red Rooster and the Johnsons, take a detour into Vince McMahon€™s eighties and nineties obsession with wrestlers having real world jobs and finish up with the Shockmaster, just like all the others, blah de blah. But no! Check yourself: for should you not, you may wreck yourself, and possibly those closest to you. First of all, a gimmick isn€™t just the persona that they ask a wrestler to take on in the ring, the motivations, mannerisms and costume of a character. That€™s a narrow jargon definition. The word €˜gimmick€™ is used in the industry as a casual catch-all slang term for any plot point in an angle, feud or match... in fact, much as the word is used in everyday life. When Vickie Guererro banned the Undertaker from using the Hell€™s Gate submission move, it was a gimmick. TNA€™s Lockdown pay-per-view features a steel cage in every match on the card: it€™s the show€™s gimmick. Triple H likes to swing a sledgehammer on those occasions when he really means (this) business: it€™s part of his gimmick. Secondly, the title is €˜most pointless€™ €“ meaning terrible concepts, on the face of it doomed from the start, that also completely fail to achieve what they€™re intended to. The Undertaker€™s whole schtick is one of the most ridiculous gimmicks ever, and the fact that they booked Mark Calaway, one of the most agile big men in the business, to play a no-selling, slow-moving zombie would have shot it to the top of a list like this, had the WWF/E not fully committed to the absurdity and eventually allowed Calaway the chance to actually wrestle for a living. Terrible matches, terrible characters, terrible rules, terrible moves, terrible ideas full stop: and none of them do what they€™re supposed to do...