10 Incredible Transformations From Jobbers To WWE Champions
2. Yokozuna
WWE's love for the lore of the samoan wrestling family tree ensured that the future Yokozuna would likely find some success in the company when he formally debuted, but mixed fortunes for the likes of The Headshrinkers, Jimmy Snuka and others didn't exactly promise a trip to the very top in 1993.
His story is a slightly tragic one, in truth. As Kokina, his 1992 summer try-out matches positioned him as a third Headshrinker, with images of him alongside Afa and the lads standing in stark contrast to the persona he'd mastered by the time he made it to television.
By the time he debuted proper, he'd shaved his beard, cut his hair and (most significantly) gained a lot more mass. Abandoning the Samoan angle, he portrayed a Japanese sumo star with such incredible conviction and jaw-dropping athleticism that a Royal Rumble 1993 win just months after his debut didn't feel that out of place. Dethroning WWE Champions Bret Hart and Hulk Hogan on consecutive pay-per-views after that, the persistent rewards resulted in dangerous weight gain that never slowed from that point until his 2000 passing.
Even when WWE made it clear that they couldn't ethically (and in some cases, legally) use him at his size by the end of 1996, he made it as apparent that a lifestyle change simply wasn’t forthcoming.