10 WWE Attitude Era Gimmicks That Didn't Get Over
3. Steve Blackman
Steve Blackman has one of the most compelling backstories in wrestling, yet oddly it was an apparent lack of personality that precluded him from real success during WWF's boom period.
As early as September 1989, Blackman was close to signing for the promotion after a series of successful house show appearances. But before he could sign on the dotted line in Stamford, he found himself instead fighting for his life.
Blackman, a former bodybuilder, had an impressive physique and was the master of an array of martial arts. However, whilst fulfilling an obligation to a friend to work in South Africa, all his training and toughness could not prevent him succumbing to a single mosquito bite.
The Stampede Wrestling alumni was bedridden for two years with malaria and dysentery, as his promising wrestling career ground to a halt. It took half a decade for him to recover, as he gradually restored his muscle mass, adding tae kwon do to his arsenal as a means of physical therapy.
Blackman eventually earned another tryout with WWF in 1997, and this time no disease-carrying insect was going to waylay him.
He struggled to make an impact. The company made no attempt to capitalise on his fascinating tale of recovery from the brink of death, and instead gave him a couple of sticks and called him 'the Lethal Weapon'. For all intents and purposes, Blackman was just a man in black trousers and nothing more.
His lack of charisma saw him meander around the mid-card until WWF decided to focus on his universal blandness by putting him in comedy skits with Al Snow. The big joke was that Blackman was not a funny guy. Hilarious!
Insisting a guy is boring is never likely to make him less so, and eventually, 'the Silent Assassin' slipped off the radar before retiring from wrestling in 2002. In something of self-fulfilling prophecy, Blackman now works as bond dealer - quite a far cry from the world of martial arts.