10 WWE Wrestlers Who Survived Awful Gimmicks To Become Huge Stars

8. Kane

Awful Gimmick: Glen Jacobs has had to endure a lot of nonsense during his time in the grap game. His first WWE gimmick was one of the worst of the mid-90s, an era notorious for its selection of naff gimmicks. The big man was brought in Isaac Yankem, DDS., Jerry Lawler's private dentist, in June 1995. Although he got to wrestle the likes of Bret Hart and Ultimate Warrior in headline matches, the gimmick was a dud and everyone knew it. He was reduced to a jobber-to-the-stars before the good folks at WWE decided he needed a repackage. Fake Dentist might have been bad, but fake Diesel was so, so much worse. Stepping into Kevin Nash's shoes, the new and certainly not improved Diesel (along with fake Razor Ramon) was a gigantic flop, a clear case of WWE trying something to spit other people, only to shoot themselves in the foot. How He Overcame It: The fake Diesel period only lasted a few months, such was the fan backlash. WWE had a better idea for Jacobs, although on paper it sounded like one that could have quite easily flopped, too. He was to be brought back to television as Kane, the storyline brother of The Undertaker. Kane was an almost instant sensation and has been a, to quote Triple H, 'constant' in WWE for eighteen years now. That's doubly impressive, when you consider how many hits the Kane character has taken over the years.