10 WWE Gimmicks With Racist Undertones
7. The Mexicools
Filling time and roster spots in WWE's half-a*sed mid-2000s Cruiserweight Division, The Mexicools earned roles thanks to exceptional performances on ECW's One Night Stand 2005 event, building on credible careers in the Extreme league and WCW during the height of the late-1990s wrestling boom.
Super Crazy, Psicosis and Juventud Guerrera were magnificently talented fliers in their own rights, but some chronic booking (particularly for the latter former masked stars in WCW) before WWE's 2001 monopoly had left them frozen out of the North American mainstream scene. The three debuted as a heel group allegedly furious with American stereotypes of Mexican wrestlers, then proceeded to abandon the fury and live down to every one of those aspersions.
Riding a 'Juan Deere' lawnmower down to the ring in overalls, the three steered so hard into the typecasting that they became one giant dig at the community they were supposed to be representing. The company stopped short of having them fight for a piñata as Vince Russo had years earlier, but a babyface turn a few months into the gimmick was the only way to ensure they weren't complete parodies of everything they'd initially set out not to be.