10 Wrestlers Who Turned Their Backs On Former Gimmicks

If Rhodess seemed pretty slick in ditching the suggestively sinister Seven gimmick, it's because he'd had practice.

In 1998, three years into his original tilt at the bizarre, WWE were looking for new ways to make the previously envelope-pushing Goldust relevant to the Attitude era. As ever, an injection of reality was the apparent way forward.

Having previously rejected the aureate attire for the past year - lightly parodying Prince under the moniker 'The Artist Formerly Known As Goldust' - Dustin once more laid his cowboy boots into his most successful pseudonym. Emerging on the entrance ramp unannounced, Rhodes proceeded to dump his costume into a barrel, before dowsing it with petrol.

Dustin, it seemed, was mad as hell and he wasn't going to take it anymore. With a flick of a match, Goldust - as he put it - "died". The gimmick - courtesy of Vince McMahon's "sick imagination" - was to blame for his loss of dignity, the breakdown of his relationship with his father, and the dissolution of his marriage. But no more: staring down the lens, Rhodes, ironically imitating the catchphrase which actually made him famous, implored Vince to "remember the name *sharp inhale*: Dustin."