10 Wrestlers WWE Wished They’d Debuted Differently

At one point in the eighties, Terry Taylor was a young buck with a huge upside. A star on the way up in the territories, Taylor was a nine-year high-flying wrestling veteran when he was signed by the WWF… to play the Red Rooster.

Rooster Boosters. Good grief.

You can see the wheels turning: Taylor looked and wrestled like a spitfire babyface, but coming into New York he needed some heat. Presumably the idea was that, running with a humiliating heel gimmick and paired with Bobby Heenan, who belittled and berated him, Taylor would finally turn on the hated Heenan, transforming sympathy into a babyface pop.

Of course, the way it went was a little different. Told for four months that Taylor was garbage and confronted with a babyface with a red tuft of hair strutting and crowing his way to the ring like a… well, rooster, the WWF audience didn’t take to him as a triumphant hero either.

After coming out on top against Heenan and the Brooklyn Brawler, the Red Rooster played jobber to the stars, then just plain jobber, until leaving for WCW in summer 1990. Any chance at legitimate stardom had vanished when the WWF planted the Red Rooster gimmick on him.

It’s hard to say whether Taylor could have been a megastar had things been different, but his talent was undeniable: these days, he works at the Performance Centre as a trainer, shepherding the next generation of stars into the world of the WWE.