10 WWE Gimmicks That Seriously Took The Piss
9. Duke 'The Dumpster' Droese
WWE's mid-1990s downturn wasn't like the ratings slides or stockholder nervousness of present day. Those are pithy quarterly concerns of a billion dollar empire. The commercial nadir back then saw wrestlers, management and even water coolers removed from active use just to save every last penny.
The product was seen from the outside as being pure garbage. Total trash. In the bin. Is it now abundantly clear what the fundamental issue was with Duke 'The Dumpster' Droese?
The moonlighting employee gimmicks were often stupid, but never had one felt so in keeping with both the external perceptions and internal realities the organisation faced.
It could be argued that Vince McMahon was doing that thing where you own something daft about yourself in order to disarm potential jokes about it...but when has the Chairman ever appeared remotely self-effacing about anything. Maybe he just really likes waste disposal? He's done plenty of stuff with sh*t and he put Dusty Rhodes on a bin lorry once when asking him to get his 'Common Man' idea over. And that wasn't even the worst gag at the 'American Dream's expense...