There are times when World Wrestling Entertainment will introduce a character that is ultimately amazing because of the wrestler's ability in portraying the character to captivate the audience into caring about their every move. Of course, given that psychology 101 says that it's easier to be hated than to be loved, the idea that heel characters have a far better chance of engendering derision than fan favorites have in gaining cheers makes sense. However, what happens when a character that seems to be meant to create hatred instead incites nothing more than polite jeers, or worse - complete boredom. There are more than twelve times that WWE has introduced "bad guy" characters that fans could honestly at the end of the day care less about than WWE ideally would like fans to care about them. However, for a plethora of different reasons, these are 12 of the best examples of when WWE created a character, the crowd didn't care, and the wrestler ultimately disappeared or whatever the deficiency was ended up being fixed, and the wrestler went on to considerably greater acclaim with a new character.
12. Mike Knox
Though well over six feet tall, easily 280-plus pounds and eventually sporting a Bruiser Brody-type beard, Mike Knox was done as a pro wrestling bad guy in WWE before he really ever got started. Making his debut in WWE's version of ECW, he was the storyline boyfriend of Kelly Kelly, who portrayed an exhibitionist. Thus, the idea was that in Knox not wanting Kelly Kelly to strip naked in front of a crowd, he'd be perceived as much more of a bad guy. Well, this would have worked in pro wrestling 30 years ago, but in 2006, WWE had already seen so many nude and partially nude women between the ages of 21 and 80 (yes, 80 - Hi Mae Young!) that the idea of a man covering up a naked woman didn't make him so much a bad guy as it made him an idiot. It's hard to get serious heat when you're considered stupid by most of the fanbase, and thus his push was largely stalled. A classic case of never getting a second chance to make a first impression, Knox was pushed solidly in 2008 and 2009, but ultimately to no avail. Ultimately, once branded as someone less than entertaining, even being put in intriguing roles as a Brody-style "big man" and a psychopath with a predilection for knowing about pressure points in order to inflict punishment, it doesn't matter. If the initial presentation is off, then everything following thereafter will likely be less than over.
Besides having been an independent professional wrestling manager for a decade, Marcus Dowling is a Washington, DC-based writer who has contributed to a plethora of online and print magazines and newspapers writing about music and popular culture over the past 15 years.
