15 Exact Moments Failed WWE Gimmicks Actually Got Over

14. Dominik Mysterio

September 2022 was the month everything in pro wrestling changed. 

The self-destruction of CM Punk in AEW unfolded at Brawl Out, the events of which haunted the company for at least two years as an ominous distraction from which escapism was impossible. Meanwhile, Vince McMahon’s disgraced exit from WWE had informed a sense of renewed optimism not felt in decades. The praise was overblown for the first few weeks. The matches were longer, the wrestlers said the word “wrestling” again, the basics were applied. Clash At the Castle however was the night that Triple H actually displayed some real creative prowess.

Dominik Mysterio was a pretty crap babyface. WWE has a weird way of portraying age. Dom felt like a dorky, wide-eyed 15 year-old kid. He skipped NXT, which in fairness did make his debut feel like an event, but it was also a very dumb decision to make for a wrestler who A) was always going to draw accusations of nepotism and B) was awful mechanically. 

At Clash At The Castle, everything that the fans resented about Dom was harnessed correctly in a booking masterstroke: he turned heel on Edge and his father. Edge going cross-eyed at the ball shot, Finn Bálor pissing himself laughing with the biggest grin he could muster: this was big, broad entertainment (complimentary). WWE can rarely be accused of being cutting edge, but tapping into the hatred of nepo-babies in an increasingly unfair world was borderline genius.

Dom wasn’t the only wrestler who actually got over in Cardiff - but first…