5. Rikishi Turns Heel (2000)
This one is all kinds of bad. Nonsensical, ill-timed, poorly thought of with no follow up, just all around awful. Rikishi took a ridiculous gimmick that seemed like it had no chance of getting over and turned himself into one of the most popular wrestlers on the entire roster. For a guy who had been a career lower/mid-carder and perennial tag team wrestler, this was quite the impressive feat, The turn was executed by revealing that Rikishi had been the man who ran down Steve Austin the year prior - BEFORE the Rikishi had actually debuted in WWE - as a favor to fellow Samoan The Rock in order to help him win the WWE Title. Later on we learned that Triple H put him up to it, but the story never went anywhere. All that was accomplished was WWE took a very over babyface who was way over with live crowds, turned him for no reason in an angle that clearly had no ending in mind when it was conceived and put a severe halt in his momentum, bringing an end to what had been a fun journey for a character we never expected to love.
Brad Hamilton
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Brad Hamilton is a writer, musician and marketer/social media manager from Atlanta, Georgia. He's an undefeated freestyle rap battle champion, spends too little time being productive and defines himself as the literary version of Brock Lesnar.
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