10 Wrestling Legends' Biggest Crimes Against Fashion
Ripping Threads To Shreds.
As with most pop culture entities, so much of professional wrestling's success or failure is determined by a product's ability to set, or at least grab onto, a prevailing trend.
With the New World Order, Eric Bischoff crafted an idea that matched his enormous vision for WCW as Executive Vice President in the mid-1990s, harnessing his keen awareness of the broader wrestling audience's need for realism and antiheroes in keeping with American societal shifts at the time.
He set the trend for it within the genre, giving himself a year's start on Vince McMahon, who notoriously prefers to be just behind the curve rather than a year in front of it despite dedicating huge chunks of his television time to Twitter after one day finding out about social media approximately a year after most platforms had plateaued.
Wrestlers are similarly guilty of chasing or embarrassingly falling behind on prevailing trends, only many of these manifest in the overall presentation of their visage.
Their stylistic choices both in and out of the ring so often come to define them, perhaps justifiably in an industry so image-conscious despite transparent claims to the contrary in recent years.
Never exactly the height of fashion especially when trapped within a wrestling bubble, even the biggest superstars have committed unforgivable fashion sins, and with most of their movements preserved on camera, the clothes live forever, even when the style most definitely does not.
10. The Rock
Perhaps wrestling's most famous fashion faux pas thanks to The Rock's megastar status and mainstream appeal, his utterly absurd 1997 publicity shot was mercilessly abused when it resurfaced on Twitter several years ago.
With industry staples such as the bumbag/fanny pack (delete as appropriate, chuckle at both) and overtly showy timepiece, Rock's brave decision to pair the turtleneck and chain a decade or so after it was socially acceptable was only topped by his protection of the aforementioned sweater's integrity with a napkin under the elbow.
Wrestling fans knew only too well that before becoming the 'Most Electrifying Man In Sports Entertainment', Rocky Maivia was something of a luckless loser. Release of this image let his brand new 'millions' in on the secret.