10 Early Gimmicks From Famous Wrestlers You Won't Believe
4. Edge
"Remember when Edge was in WCW?" always scans as unbelievable because those two terms are oxymoronic.
Edge?
WCW?
Edge ran on the independent scene before, in reaction to WWE's monopoly, it underwent a reinvention as the cool, alternative fringe destination for great pro wrestling. It was so obscure as to not exist. He entered the WWF after even SMW and the USWA were finished.
He then trialled, effectively, in the old Stamford warehouse before narrowly avoiding a career death sentence when Vince Russo pitched the character 'Riot & Rage' on his behalf. All set to wear frilly shirts and read poetry underneath a shocking streak of dyed green hair, it was only when Don Callis dreamed up the name 'Edge' that Adam Copeland took on the character of an angsty industrial goth. It was nonsense, but just generic enough to avoid a risible stigma. Edge, basically, did not exist before turning up in some dire vignettes in the spring of 1998.
Except he did, just about, under the hilariously CAW name of 'Damon Striker'.
Drenched in naive folly, 'Damon Striker' was such a '90s name, fusing a famous Hollywood actor with a slight hint of a combat athlete. It reads like the name a wrestler some hack TV writer would name in some procedural drama that happened to be about wrestling that week.