10 WWE Gimmicks That Are Broken
1. Dean Ambrose - 'The Lunatic Fringe'
Like a lot of the names on this list, Dean Ambrose suffers from being portrayed as the most vanilla version of ‘crazy’ possibly imaginable. The Lunatic Fringe is wacky at best, a kind of Coca Cola Presents Crazy that pleases shareholders and parents, but lacks anything in the way of legitimacy or creative flair.
As Jon Moxley back in CZW, Ambrose did some outright insane things with tables, barbed wire, cutlery, and chairs, and delivered some intense promos that seemed to be coming from the mind of someone who had suffered a few too many shots to the head with a foreign object. In WWE, we’re made to believe he’s insane… because he does a bounce-back lariat and keeps a potted plant.
No matter how loudly or obnoxiously JBL says that Dean is “a ravinglunatic”, nobody is really buying it. His weapon-based matches are often of a surprisingly low quality, and his supposedly unpredictable style is somehow easier to predict than the vast majority of his roster-mates.
Whether this is the fault of creative, Vince McMahon, PG ratings, or Dean Ambrose himself, one thing’s for sure: 'The Lunatic Fringe' is about as unstable as a bank manager with a mortgage.