10 WWE Storylines That Horribly Backfired
4. Smithers, Have The Rolling Stones Killed
In the spring of 1996, Scott Razor Ramon Hall and Kevin Diesel Nash left the company that made them stars for the guaranteed big money of WCW contracts. They couldnt take those ready-made characters with them, of course they were the intellectual property of the WWF, and so both men went to Atlanta under their given names, names they would proceed to make their reputations on (for good or bad) all over again. Its probably euphemistic to say that Vince McMahon didnt take this very well. He sued WCW over it, for a start you can read more about it here, but suffice to say that he claimed that the Scott Hall and Kevin Nash characters the pair were playing were only versions of Razor Ramon and Diesel, characters he owned. Whether he had a point or not was never proven in court, as the case was settled without a decision being reached however, he went one better and followed his own point through to its logical conclusion. He hired two new wrestlers to play the parts. Rick Bognar had the thankless task of taking on the Bad Guys persona, while Glenn Jacobs, in one of his earlier roles before he struck lucky with the Kane gimmick, was stuck trying to make a silk purse out of a sows ear as an ersatz Diesel. To make matters worse, the WWF saddled poor old Jim Ross with the two, in his only foray into heel management. The fans crapped all over the retread gimmicks from a mile up. It was brutal, and entirely predictable: its not like Hall and Nash were Doink, or Sin Cara. The fake Razor and Diesel characters lasted long enough to get a cup of coffee, but not long enough to drink it. Its saying something that even Vince Russo thought this was a terrible idea.