10 Absurd Wrestling Gimmicks That Should Have BOMBED (But Didn't)
These utterly ridiculous wrestling gimmicks should NOT have worked, right?
You never really know which wrestling characters are suddenly going to strike a chord with the paying public and become one of the most over parts of a weekly show or company as a whole.
Now, history has shown that, more often than not, those characters who simply take their real-life, authentic personality and dial it up to eleven tend to have a habit of forging a strong connection with those making their voices heard inside of arenas and online each and every week.
But that being said, the wrasslin' business has also thrown more than a few simply outrageous, larger than life, or just plain dumb gimmicks into the mix that had absolutely no right to succeed or click in the way they ultimately did.
Who would've truly thought that the fiery brother of a walking, talking Deadman would go on to become one of the most recognisable big men of all time? Or a wannabe superhero would end up going one-on-one with The Great One?
Not many.
Yet, that still couldn't stop this collection of talented folks from finding a way to turn some of the daftest characters imaginable into absolute money.
10. Kane (Big Red Machine)
In the time before he was p*ssing off much of the wrestling landscape with his political views, the now Mayor of Knox County was more commonly known as the figure behind the mask of The Big Red Machine.
After trying and failing to really make much of a private dentist gimmick or the part of Diesel 2.0, Glenn Jacobs was reintroduced to the WWF audience as the personification of fire and brother of The Undertaker, Kane.
That's right. This mountain of a human opted to lean into the fact that his own flesh and blood attempted to murder him in a house fire by donning a black and red body suit and summoning flames from the ring posts.
Despite this scanning as a little silly at a glance, though, the intimidating brother of The Deadman genuinely struck fear into the hearts of many youngsters watching on at the time of his 1997 debut at Badd Blood: In Your House. And it genuinely felt as though The Phenom had finally met his physical match.
Overexposure ultimately resulted in that once menacing aura being diluted with each passing year, mind. But for a while there, this burned up sibling legitimately captivated the masses with his fiery shenanigans.