10 Successful Gimmicks You Forgot WWE Tried Again

During an otherwise serious creative meeting building up to Yokozuna's title win (then loss) at WrestleMania IX, some unnamed staffer stood up and asked the question: 'What would happen if we exposed his big behind, put some sunglasses on him and made Yoko dance to cheesy, 1980s-inspired beats as fans roared their approval?'. That entirely made up scenario would've birthed Rikishi before Too Cool was even a twinkle in Vince Russo's eye.

Yep, it's true. Rikishi was originally supposed to be Yokozuna 2.0. Legend has it that Vince McMahon wanted Fatu to wear a thong Yoko had balked at. It was supposed to be a sumo wrestling mawashi, but let's be real about it. Kish rocked a thong-tha-thong thong thong during matches. Sometimes, if he didn't like certain wrestlers, Rikishi would reportedly skip the "wash" part of mawashi and perform his stinkface spot anyway.

Wrestling is some industry, isn't it? Apologies to anybody reading this over lunch, but various WWE stars could probably tell you what Kish had for his that day pre-match. Eventually, Fatu's creative moved him further away from the sumo style and more towards a standard big man one. Comparisons to Yokozuna faded by the time he was hanging out with Scotty Too Hotty and Grandmaster Sexay on TV.

It's actually a bit of a surprise WWE didn't come back to the more serious Yoko-esque presentation once Kish turned heel in late-2000. He might've been able to make that work rather than effectively sticking to his comedic look and slapping a 'Bad Man' nickname over the top like that'd solve everything.

More like bad booking.