10 Wrestlers Who Didn't Get The Reaction They Wanted
1. Lord Tensai Is Albert; He's Not Exactly Hard To Spot
"So you've been working in Japan, huh?" said Vince McMahon to the former Albert with a gleam in his eye.
And that's pretty how much how he arrived at Lord Tensai: showcasing, not for the first or last time, utter contempt for his audience. The vision behind the gimmick was rooted in something that wasn't not logical: Albert had indeed ventured east, adjusted quite well to the more punishing ring style, and earned plaudits for his work as a bruising hoss throwback. And so, as a result, he returned to WWE, in a rare acknowledgement of the outside world, as an onscreen character who had done precisely that.
Only, because this is WWE, it was too subtle. He couldn't just be "Albert is quite good now". He couldn't be Giant Albert, in a nod to his past and near-present, because he was unmistakably that guy from the Attitude Era named after a c*ck piercing. He couldn't just be Giant Albert, a man who dominated Japan and returned to his homeland with a stiffer striking game and more dangerous angles to his power-based offence. He, a caucasian, had to be a Japanese caricature because Vince McMahon.
Everybody knew he was Albert, and, on his post-WrestleMania return, were rather amused in a "lol of course" way that he was dressed in the dumb way he was.
Literally the opposite of a monstrous reaction to a monster character.