10 Wrestlers Who Blamed Themselves For Failing In WWE
2. Kane
One of the most successful transformations in pro-wrestling history saw Glenn Jacobs go from Fake Diesel to Kane, becoming one of the sport's most celebrated monsters in a decades-long run that wasn't without hiccups, but brought great prosperity to a well-respected big man with a fetish for fire and electrocuting Shane McMahon's testicles.
Before Fake Diesel, Jacobs played Isaac Yankem, DDS. The original Britt Baker, he was a WrestleCrap-worthy evil dentist character introduced alongside Jerry Lawler and tasked with swatting Bret Hart. The gimmick didn't take off - because of course it didn't - and Jacobs was stripped of it after a year, having totally failed to get over.
A 2018 appearance on Lawler's Dinner With The King podcast saw Kane take ownership of Yankem flopping. He said that while his employers did all they could to try and make the character work and invested a lot of faith in him as a performer, he didn't put forth the same effort, resulting in the gimmick bombing.
While it's tough to argue with the man himself on this matter, it's just as hard to imagine Yankem ever getting over in wrestling.