We all knew this was going to be number 1. Despite the many, many failed characters that have been introduced since Fred Ottman stumbled his way into our hearts, none have captured that perfect storm of absurdity and poor timing quite like The Shockmaster. He was doomed to fail before he even stepped foot in front of the camera. Someone ensured the glittered-up Stormtrooper's debut would be a spectacular failure with the use of some good old fashioned sabotage. "Somebody" who wanted The Shockmaster to fail (which was pretty much everyone except the character's creator, Dusty Rhodes), decided, at the last minute, to nail a 2x4 to the bottom of the wall of sheetrock that The Shockmaster was to enter through. Fred didn't notice this new addition to the set and went ass over teakettle as soon as he crashed through the wall. His helmet flew off, the crowd was stunned into silence, and the other wrestlers in the promo had no idea what the hell they were supposed to do to fix the gigantic blunder. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p7Q4EVpIFIk Pretty much everyone onscreen breaks character, with repeated utterances of "Oh, God" audible to viewers at home. Booker T flat out loses it, asking the question everyone else was surely thinking: "Who is this motherf*cker?" Ole Anderson, who was supposed to voice The Shockmaster from another room since there was no mic inside the helmet, can be heard laughing before starting his big speech to Sid Vicious and the other wrestlers. Bless Sid for trying to smooth things over and continuing with his (hopefully) scripted bit of rage at the new guy. But there was nothing to save here. The Shockmaster was dead on arrival.
