8 Stupid WWE Gimmicks That Got Over Huge

8. The Hurricane

STAND BACK! There's a goofy jobber-to-the-stars coming through!

Superhero movies are all the rage these days - one cursory look at the recent box-office figures should tell you all you need to know about that - but the situation was somewhat different in the early 2000s.

They were popular, sure, with Sam Raimi's Spider-Man (2002) a notable mega-hit, but they weren't constant record-breakers like they were these days and there were big misses, too. One person who was a noted fan of the genre was former Three Count member Shane Helms, who had a Green Lantern logo tattooed on his arm.

Inspired by the love of his caped idols, Helms adopted a superhero gimmick towards the end of the Invasion in late 2001. It wasn't especially over in its early days, but it did grow to become one of the most popular midcard acts in the company.

So much so that, by March 2003, Hurricane was over enough to engage in a mini feud with Hollywood superstar The Rock. He even got a surprise victory over The Great One and it was around this time that his merchandise sales were some of the strongest in the company.

Hurricane pretty much always provoked a reaction and could fit a number of different roles, but he and WWE saw fit to ditch the gimmick in 2005, with Helms becoming the nondescript Gregory Helms instead. He floundered, and ended up going back to being The Hurricane in 2008.

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