10 Wrestling Gimmicks That Went Way Over Everyone’s Heads

2. Ludvig Borga (Environmental Warrior)

Ludvig Borga
WWE.com

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.

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Lifelong wrestling, video game, music and sports obsessive who has been writing about his passions since childhood. Jamie started writing for WhatCulture in 2013, and has contributed thousands of articles and YouTube videos since then. He cut his teeth penning published pieces for top UK and European wrestling read Fighting Spirit Magazine (FSM), and also has extensive experience working within the wrestling biz as a manager and commentator for promotions like ICW on WWE Network and WCPW/Defiant since 2010. Further, Jamie also hosted the old Ministry Of Slam podcast, and has interviewed everyone from Steve Austin and Shawn Michaels to Bret Hart and Trish Stratus.