10 WWE Gimmicks That Seriously Took The Piss
6. Saba Simba
There's a pretty grim scene in an episode of Tuesday Night Titans buried in the WWE Network archive where Paul Orndorff stretches more than during a pre-workout routine to compare Tony Atlas to a gorilla at the Atlanta Zoo.
It's as uncomfortable as it sounds, even if 1984 Vince McMahon and Lord Alfred Hayes mostly no-sell the severity as was clearly the style at the time. McMahon no-selled the f*ck out of his own supposed "genius" on commentary when he trotted Atlas out as some sort of savage seven years later.
Even Roddy Piper wasn't having any of it. He blew his stack when McMahon said he was "proud of his heritage" during the character's Superstars debut, noting how ridiculous he looked while repeatedly referring to him as Tony Atlas as if he was his oldest and fondest friend. He was beaten down into just accepting by the end, like Simba himself. Like everybody, us included.