10 Terrible WWE Reinventions

After seven years playing the patriotic defender of all things starry and stripey, perhaps giving Sergeant Slaughter a new lease of life as a heel wasn't the worst idea.

That is, had he not been turned into an Iraqi sympathiser during the middle of the Gulf War.

In 1990, WWE's business was in decline, and in a bid to boost interest - and more pressingly, sell-out the ludicrously ambitious 100,000 seater Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum for WrestleMania VII - Vince McMahon reverted to first principles: xenophobia.

Having Slaughter turn on his country out of admiration for Saddam Hussein's brutal, Ba'aathist Iraq certainly got lips flapping - or more specifically, journalists' pens scribbling - but not much of it was positive. Rather, the stunt was seen for the transparently sensationalist publicity grab it was, whilst being denigrated for demonstrating precisely zero tact in the context of actual soldiers losing their lives in the desert conflict.

Slaughter himself was uncomfortable with his new character, this discomfort no doubt worsened by the company's decision to move WrestleMania to the (considerable smaller) Los Angeles Memorial Sports Arena, due to "security concerns".

There was a simpler explanation for the switch: the whole thing was a bit crap.