10 Stupidest Gimmick Changes In WWE History

In the pre-Hulkamania days of the WWF, there were only a handful of wrestlers who were bigger stars than "Mr. USA" Tony Atlas. Atlas and his partner Rocky Johnson became the first African-American men to capture the WWF tag titles when they defeated the Wild Samoans in 1983.

Atlas was primed for a run with the Intercontinental title but a growing drug problem caused him to miss several dates for the company and led to his departure. When he returned in 1990, McMahon didn't want Atlas to bring back his "Black Superman" character, he wanted Atlas completely different.

Atlas was morphed into the walking stereotype "Saba Simba", a Uganda tribal warrior who carried a spear and wore a ridiculously over-sized headdress to the ring. I'm not one to throw around the word "racist" very much but this gimmick definitely toed the line.

When he debuted at the 1991 Royal Rumble, McMahon wanted Simba treated like a completely new character and not reference his past as Tony Atlas or as a former WWF tag champion.

So you can only imagine his annoyance when, upon Simba's entrance, color commentator Roddy Piper exclaimed "Hey, it's Tony Atlas!"