10 Attempted WWE Repackages That Failed Miserably
Oh Chavo...
Repackages are often a necessity in professional wrestling. Acts become stale, gimmicks lose their steam and wrestlers fall in popularity: it happens all the time, and whether through poor booking or natural stagnation, it often calls the creative team into action. WWE aren’t always quick to make such decisions, but a repackage can either make or break a pro-wrestler’s career, and history is strewn with examples of both.
Kane became one of wrestling’s most notable monsters upon transitioning from Isaac Yankem DDS and Fake Diesel, and becoming JBL transformed Bradshaw from tag team also-ran to WWE Champion. Such repackages have seen WWE strike gold and create marketable main events out of previously underwhelming wrestlers, but it doesn’t always go so well.
For every Kane or JBL, there’s an Adam Rose or “Ringmaster” Steve Austin (whose “Stone Cold” repackaging might be the most successful of all-time, ironically). There are countless wrestlers who fell from grace after having their names, gimmicks and characters changed by WWE’s writers, and repackaging isn’t always the shot of adrenaline it’s purported to be.
Featuring fallen main eventers, career midcarders and everything in-between, here are 10 attempted WWE repackages that failed miserably.
10. Owen Hart To The Blue Blazer
Owen Hart is a future WWE Hall of Famer (hopefully), and one of the most highly-regarded pure wrestling talents in the history of the business. His legacy reached a tragic conclusion, and while he was never WWE World Champion, Hart enjoyed a highly-successful run through the company’s upper-midcard and will forever be remembered among the all-time greats.
Sadly, WWE saw fit to mess with this by putting a mask on Hart and having him become The Blue Blazer in 1998, which was a gimmick he'd used in the early 90s. While the repackaging was reportedly something Owen wanted to do, it was a horrible misuse of one of the company’s best wrestlers. A garish superhero pastiche, the Blazer was incredibly self-righteous and played-up the claim that he wasn’t Owen Hart despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary.
The Blue Blazer was affronted by the Attitude Era’s edgy, risqué shift in programming and would regularly rage against the company’s creative direction. The character took a comical turn when Blazer connected with Jeff Jarrett, and Hart was never as notable while wrestling as the Blue Blazer as he was when working under his own name.