10 WWE Wrestlers Who Survived Awful Gimmicks To Become Huge Stars

5. Kevin Nash

Awful Gimmick: Before he was 'Big Daddy Cool' Kevin Nash was anything but. The 55-year-old had a plethora of rotten gimmicks before hit it big in the mid-90s. He would have to wait until coming to the WWE to become a star, as WCW seemed intent on sabotaging his career with dud after dud. He came into WCW as 'Steel', one half of go-nowhere tag team The Master Blasters. After that bombed, he was repackaged as Oz. As in, the Wizard of Oz. As in a man with a great big silver beard and bright green clothing. Surprisingly, Oz received something a big push in WCW in 1991. Unsurprisingly, it didn't get over and was dropped a year later. Nash was then repackaged as Vinnie Vegas, a psuedo-mobster who cracked jokes and wrestled badly (although that wasn't part of the gimmick, it was just Nash's way). Nash worked the Vinnie Vegas gimmick for a while, teaming with The Diamond Studd, Scotty Flamingo and DDP, before leaving for the WWE in late 1993. How He Survived It: It was under Vince's creative direction that Nash finally broke away from the hopeless comedy characters he had been playing. Now 'Diesel', he was the ass-kicking bodyguard of Shawn Michaels. Nash became so popular (and was such a good backstage politician) that the company put the WWE Title on him for a year. Nash continued to play a cocky ass-kicker in WCW, where he became a founding member of the highly successful nWo. Had he not managed to escape the bad gimmicks, he wouldn't have gotten there. It's hard to see Vinnie Vegas rubbing shoulders with Hulk Hogan in the main event, isn't it?