10 Absolute Worst Gimmicks In Wrestling Today
Aliens, ninjas and kings; there are some seriously wretched gimmicks around at the moment.
How important is a good gimmick in professional wrestling?
It is a difficult question to answer. Performers don't necessarily need a good gimmick to be a success after all. Pro wrestling history is full of megastars whose gimmicks didn't extend beyond the old 'your own personality turned up to 11' cliche. If you have the talent, the confidence and the luck, a good gimmick isn't necessarily that important.
A good gimmick isn't so important, but a bad gimmick can be utterly fatal to the career and fortunes of a professional wrestler. Find yourself saddled with a lame-duck persona and your credibility can be torn to shreds, leading to a career regression that many struggle to recover from. There are more of these in those same history books than the success stories; just ask Mantaur, Friar Ferguson, TL Hopper or The Goon.
Those names are part of wrestling history, but the current landscape has its fair share of stinkers. A need to stand out has led to a number of particularly wretched gimmicks making their way onto television, with both WWE and AEW at fault on a number of occasions. All bad gimmicks are awful, but some are more awful than others...
10. Brandi Rhodes
Does Brandi Rhodes have a gimmick, or is the problem that she has too many? One week she is a cocky heel, the next she is the brave woman protecting her family. She cuts promos as if she was a wily veteran, yet backs it up with youthful exuberance. She seems to carry her action figure with her wherever she goes, despite not doing anything that justifies the figure's existence. Brandi Rhodes is all things at once, meaning she is none of them at all.
In fact, her gimmick seems to be that she eats at the top table and thus can be all things she wants to be, at all times. She clearly wants to be taken seriously as an in-ring competitor but it is way cooler to do that as a blurred-lines badass, so a blurred-lines badass she is. When the Nightmare Family is under attack, all signs of that heel badass are gone, replaced by valiance and bravery.
By portraying childish versions of everyone's favourite wrestling personas, Brandi Rhodes has become a performer without a character, with a mess of a gimmick that confuses and irritates. The sooner she settles, the better.