9 Promos That Killed Wrestlers' Careers

9. The Brood Break Their Silence...And Gangrel Quietly Goes Away

Gangrel seemed to be in the perfect position during the Attitude Era. He was the leader of a hot young stable that was playing off the popularity of "nu-Vampire" movies like Blade, and his silent (you might say brooding) gimmick allowed him to get extremely over with the fans without having to do anything besides look vaguely menacing and perform competently in the ring.

And then they had him speak. Oh how they wish they could turn back time on that decision.

After a brief feud with The Ministry of Darkness, Gangrel and his compatriots were absorbed by The Undertaker's faction, and became the group's whipping boys, constantly proving their loyalty by enduring beatings and actual floggings. It was brutal stuff. When The Brood then split from The Ministry -- after The Undertaker tried forcing Edge and Gangrel to sacrifice Christian, no less -- the stage was set for an intense and dramatic promo.

Instead, we got the immediate vaporization of their mystique. While reciting lines in a stilted, nasally timbre, Gangrel sounds less like a Lost Boy than he did a Goonie-in-training, and his "evil laugh" is as embarrassing as they come.

Subsequently, Gangrel was basically banned from the mic, Edge and Christian were pulled away from him -- though briefly replaced with Matt and Jeff Hardy -- and the vampire enthusiast never regained his initial popularity.