10 Best Wrestling Gimmick Changes Of 2016

5. Heath Slater

heath slater
WWE.com

A subtle one this, but a change nonetheless. 12 months ago you would have got extremely long odds on Heath Slater being the biggest success story of a WWE brand split. You probably would have gotten shorter odds on Slater actually being released at some point during the year. Yet, here we stand in October 2016 with Heath Slater as popular as he has ever been as well as being one half of the SmackDown Tag Team Champions.

Slater's change has seen him go from obnoxious loser who overstates his own importance and abilities to the everyman's fighting man. Sure, he may still be somewhat delusional, but he's doing this for his wife and for his kids and for his above ground pool. It is a minor tweak, but it has been huge for the career of the Red Dragon.

I wouldn't put money on it lasting however, as it may well have only been a short deal. Once the titles are lost, does Slater return to enhancement level jobbing? Does it matter? No, not really. The last three months have arguably been the best of Heath Slater's career.

Advertisement
In this post: 
Matt Hardy
 
Posted On: 
Contributor
Contributor

Born in the middle of Wales in the middle of the 1980's, John can't quite remember when he started watching wrestling but he has a terrible feeling that Dino Bravo was involved. Now living in Prague, John spends most of his time trying to work out how Tomohiro Ishii still stands upright. His favourite wrestler of all time is Dean Malenko, but really it is Repo Man. He is the author of 'An Illustrated History of Slavic Misery', the best book about the Slavic people that you haven't yet read. You can get that and others from www.poshlostbooks.com.