10 Early Gimmicks From Famous Wrestlers You Won't Believe
Daniel Bryan had charisma before The Miz even started wrestling - as you'll discover...
It take times for a wrestler, musician, or artist in general to discover their voice or style. Even the lowly content creator evolves over time, from deriving much inspiration from Power Slam magazine before becoming a snarky and vulgar writer who "reaches" to find story beats and could really do with "touching grass"; otherwise, they are in significant danger of "scaring the hoes".
Sometimes, this evolution is subtle; more a case of refinement than reinvention.
Consider Kenny Omega. In the early phase of his career, his video game-inspired character was a lot broader. He entered the ring to a Jimmy Hart Megaman theme and performed the Hadouken. He later dropped the overt elements to become a more major league act, applying rapid-fire combos to his incredible offensive clusters as the action intensified. He named a move after the V-Trigger, but he also developed a new wrestling rhythm based on the mechanic.
Eddie Kingston is Eddie Kingston. Eddie Kingston is so great because he's Eddie Kingston. MJF, across 2022, slowly added more depth to his box office persona. That way, his sociopathy was even more deep and manipulative.
Other times, the leap from an early persona to the final form is...radical.
10. Corey Graves
Here's something interesting, which is odd, since this copy is about Corey Graves.
A few years back, on Twitter, Corey Graves when responding to Becky Lynch claimed that "It's hard to go FULL-Heenan when the boss is actually paying attention to your work". This was barely-obscured code for "I could be as good as the funniest man to ever enter the wrestling business if it weren't for that infernal Vince McMahon telling me what I can and can't say!"
That's the only thing that stopped Corey Graves from being as good and as funny as Bobby Heenan. Strange, no, considering that Vince isn't there anymore and Corey's still more or less telling Byron Saxton not to talk - which, while appreciated, isn't really funny.
Come to think of it, he wasn't the funniest man to ever enter the wrestling business when he called NXT away from the aural terrorism of a surgery-ravaged despot, so perhaps he's just deluded?
Before a career-ending head injury forced him into your ears, Graves, the telegenic face of the establishment who proved at Hell In A Cell this year that he's far better calling it down the middle, played an acerbic, shaven-headed, tattooed punk rocker with a submission skill-set who promised to make opponents "tap out or pass out".
His ring name wasn't We Have CM Punk At Home, but rather Sterling James Keenan.