Much of the appeal of pro wrestling comes from the enjoyment of getting lost in the stories featuring larger than life characters seemingly straight out of action movies or ripped from the pages of comic books. It isn't often that a plainly-clad wrestler with a bland personality gets over with the crowd. Most performers need something to ramp up their persona and make the audience take notice and become invested. That's where gimmicks come in. The gimmick is basically the character that a wrestler portrays and the traits he or she adopts. Sometimes these can be simplistic, subtle changes and other times they're completely over the top and ludicrous. One of the first gimmicks to gain massive notoriety was Gorgeous George, and it's universally agreed that The Undertaker is the greatest gimmick of all-time, and most of that credit goes to the man behind the character. But for every successful gimmick there are hundreds of disastrous ones. For a perfect example of how essential finding the right one can be, look no further than Kane. Glenn Jacobs spent years languishing away with horrible personas such as The Christmas Creature and Isaac Yankem before catching fire as Kane. Same man, same talent, but the right character at the right time. Unfortunately some performers never find their Kane, and instead quietly slip away into obscurity, at the mercy of the creative team who couldn't hit on that successful formula. World Championship Wrestling, for everything they did right (which was a lot more than revisionist history would have you believe) conjured up some pretty atrocious gimmicks in their day, sometimes even ending the careers of the wrestlers bestowed them. So let's take a look at the 20 most cringe-worthy gimmicks in WCW history.