10 Occupational Wrestling Gimmicks You Won't Believe
8. Duke 'The Dumpster' Droese
By WWE's mid-1990s commercial nadir, the jokes were writing themselves, unless Vince McMahon happened to be crafting them first.
The company was bleeding money and offered very few mainstream stars or household names in response. McMahon was convinced Randy Savage should only be behind the desk, and while the likes of Bret and Owen Hart, Shawn Michaels, Diesel, Razor Ramon and The 1-2-3 Kid were totally reimagining the quality of the in-ring product like never before, they weren't penetrating the zeitgeist as Hulk Hogan and others had before them. And they couldn't even be on screen every minute of the broadcast. Not least when time needed to be made for...a bin man.
Duke Droese was tall-ish and with great hair, but he could have been Kevin Nash himself and it wouldn't have mattered when he sauntered out holding a trash can in full garbage disposal uniform. Yet again, a gimmick - nay, a job - rather than a personality trait, this predictably inspired nobody.
How could it? Do you boo the men and women who go to the trouble of emptying your bins every week? Of course not, why would you? It'd be like booing your plumber...