WWE Gimmicks That FAILED The HARDEST Every Year (1985-2025)
16. The Anonymous Raw GM (2010)
A strong case could be made for stretching the 'Anonymous Raw General Manager' idea into 2011, 2012 and 2014 too. The gimmick was wheeled out in all of those years after a core run in 2010, and it failed to delight on each and every occasion. Michael Cole reading emails on behalf of the unnamed GM did feel fresh and interesting for a while, but then it became clear that WWE didn't have a locked in plan for exactly who'd be behind this Wizard Of Oz behaviour.
They outed Hornswoggle in the summer of 2012 to audible groans, but the proverbial horse had bolted long before that. Creative moved on from the anonymous authority figure in favour of Triple H and John Laurinaitis coming into power; fans were told (sort of) that neither of those were behind the mysterious laptop/email account, but that was about it.
You were just supposed to forget about the MacBook GM thing until WWE told you to care about it again. Swoggle has teased that he was going to turn into a GM who was drunk on power but didn't want to flex corporate muscles in person, so he hid behind the email account as a means to control the product.
Yeah, not gonna lie, that would've been more interesting if it wasn't Hornswoggle in the cancelled role. It was only a few months in that fans started asking, 'So, when is this storyline getting some movement?'. That movement wasn't forthcoming, probs because WWE didn't even really go into it with a proper outcome in mind.