10 WWE Gimmicks That Overstayed Their Welcome

Stardust (June 16, 2014-May 20, 2016)

For the gimmicks Vince McMahon has helped produce, this is the one that could haunt him forever.

Since 1989, the resilience of the Rhodes' Family to persevere in the face of gimmicks that would have hobbled anyone else's career has been well-documented. Dusty made polka-dots stylish while grinding to the "Common Man Boogie". Dustin was handed a character that took androgyny to bizarre, unexpected and sometimes tasteless levels and came back, asking to be MORE outlandish. Cody himself followed his brother's example, cranking the insanity meter to 11 and started hissing in people's faces while rambling about some sort of 'Cosmic Key'. In short, The Rhodes' could have held a year's worth of banquets with the chicken salad they produced.

As Vince is concerned, his fatal error may well have come in May 2016. After a successful two-year run as Stardust that included tag team titles, a feud with brother Goldust that was inexplicably abandoned and a lovely polka-dot tribute to his recently deceased father at WrestleMania 32, Cody felt it was time to put Stardust to bed and build toward something bigger.

The Chairman disagreed.

The rest is academic. Cody requested his release on 20 May 2016 and three years later, the former Stardust (along with a few other pretty good wrestlers) laid the foundation for All Elite Wrestling. With WWE now experiencing the most serious competition they've faced in about 20-25 years, one imagines Vince would like to have that one back.