10 WWE New Generation Era Superstars You Totally Don't Remember
5. Abe ‘Knuckleball’ Schwartz
Little known fact time: Abe 'Knuckleball' Schwartz was actually a 1994 retread of Steve Lombardi’s old MVP baseball gimmick. He'd used that in 1993, but it vanished before anybody watching WWF TV really knew what was what. In '94, Lombardi played ball again due to the ongoing Major League Baseball strike.
That was topical, so the WWF's bigwigs decided to give Abe a shot.
The MLB players strike lasted until April 1995, but Schwartz wasn't going to get that long out of this reframed gimmick. In fact, Vince McMahon got bored of Abe after only a few weeks. It was back to playing The Brooklyn Brawler for stalwart Steve. The face paints and moaning at wrestling fans stopped.
Lombardi did assume the role again as a one-off in 2007, but that was done so Triple H could make a joke about the Brawler being too busy to show up. Anyone unfamiliar with obscure mid-90s characters would've had zero clue what was going on there.