10 Terrible Wrestling Gimmicks You Secretly Love
These WWE gimmicks had dreadful moments, but fans still love them anyway!
These gimmicks were either terrible on paper or terribly mishandled in execution.
Obviously, one fan's trash is another's treasure. It's why some will scoff at stunning Will Ospreay matches over in AEW and fire up old episodes of Raw to watch babyface Doink wrestle instead. There are no strict rules governing what people should and shouldn't like in wrestling - it's subjective, and that's a beautiful thing.
A lot of the ideas presented here are what might be considered guilty pleasures. There's depth to that thought though. Perhaps a gimmick was totally crap at the time, but led to something amazing later on. In some instances, going through the motions actually pushed a few wrestlers to do their best work. That's amazing.
Other bits of booking didn't fly with audiences at all, but they deserve to be showered in some love looking back; that's done whilst acknowledging the pitfalls and why they didn't shake out like the next coming of The Undertaker, of course.
Admit it! You've got a special place in your heart for this nonsense. Who doesn't enjoy experimentation in a biz as topsy turvy as this?!
10. R-Truth = 24/7 Champion
R-Truth is a 54-time WWE 24/7 Champion.
The man himself will mention that during his eventual Hall Of Fame speech for a giggle, but he was the only glue holding an otherwise-rotten title division together. WWE debuted the 24/7 Title in 2019, and few folks were sad to see it go when Triple H retired the thing in November 2022. Truth would've been one of those few!
Looking back, he worked wonders to make the belt watchable at all. Sure, the joke wore thin fairly quickly, but there was still something so endearing about Ron Killings calling himself the '7/11, 365, 24 hour champion' (or whatever it was). People got a laugh out of that, if nothing else, which must be why WWE gave Truth so many runs.
Contrast and compare Truth's barmy vignettes to those filmed by guys like Reggie, Mojo Rawley and even ex-NFL star Rob Gronkowski. It wasn't even close. Truth's segments had a natural OTT vibe to them, whereas everyone else felt forced in the same role.