10 Wrestling Gimmicks That Went Way Over Everyone’s Heads

2. Ludvig Borga (Environmental Warrior)

What People Thought: Opposite pro-American caricatures like Lex Luger and his 'Lex Express' bandwagon, Ludvig Borga was considered a straightforward "foreign menace" heel. The Finnish brawler had MMA touches, and he was keen to let everyone know that USA sucked, and it sucked hard. This was an easy heel failsafe in 1993.

What He Actually Was: Borga didn't despise the United States because he was from Finland. He instead hated the hedonistic excess of American culture, how it was poisoning our beautiful planet and leaving the next generation to pick up the pieces. In other words, he was an environmental warrior more than 25 years before Daniel Bryan was.

Early promos for the big European showed him bemoaning the "filth and pollution" America had caused.

That was quickly ignored in favour of playing up the idea that Borga hated American wrestling fans because he thought he was a better wrestler than their heroes. His initial story wasn't quite so dull. It was actually pretty thought-provoking.