10 Most Disastrous Wrestling Debuts Ever
2. The Gobbledy Gooker
If ever you find yourself complaining about WWE’s current creative direction, take yourself back to 1990 and look up The Gobbledy Gooker. While the gimmick’s basic premise makes The Gooker one of wrestling’s greatest punchlines, the debut was truly cringeworthy television, and one of the worst in wrestling history.
An oversized egg had been paraded around WWE television for months, and its hatching was set to take place at Survivor Series ‘90. The event was heavily hyped in the lead-up, with WWE doing all they could to portray The Gooker’s imminent arrival as a must-see event, but nobody cared.
Hector Guerrero burst from the egg clad in a turkey costume, the crowd died, and the sound of Roddy Piper and Gorilla Monsoon trying to sell The Gooker and Gene Okerlund dancing in the ring as one of the most incredible events of the year remains thoroughly depressing.
Vince McMahon continued to try and provoke crowd responses with the most famous turkey in pro-wrestling history, but failed completely. The Gooker was banished from television and not even mentioned on television for another 10 years, when the gimmick was briefly revived for WrestleMania X-Seven’s Gimmick Battle Royal.
Is The Gobbledy Gooker the worst idea in wrestling history? Possibly, but as far as disastrous debuts go, one man has him trumped...