10 Most Cringeworthy Political Angles In WWE History
8. The Real Americans
Jack Swagger’s 2013 rebirth as a “Real American” made him more relevant than he’d been in years, but the gimmick pushed the envelope a little too far. Swagger and his manager Zeb Colter were presented as a pair of hot-blooded American patriots who were vehemently against immigration, and they set their sights on Alberto Del Rio almost immediately.
The Real Americans were supposed to be a parody of Fox News, Glenn Beck, and the American Tea Party movement. A number of political commentators attacked the angle, but WWE defended themselves by stating that the gimmick didn’t represent their political point of view, and that this was an attempt at incorporating current events in their storyline.
Still, Colter did have a tendency to take things a little too far, regularly reciting lines like “I look around and I see a country that I don’t even recognise. I see people with faces not like mine.”
The group was eventually expanded to include Switzerland’s Cesaro, bizarrely, but they faded from prominence over the coming months. Swagger later turned face to battle Rusev, which stripped most of the gimmick’s jingoism away, but did nothing to deliver on what could’ve been a promising turn.
The angle may have been successful had WWE exercised a little restraint in their portrayal, but when have they ever done that?