15 Exact Moments Failed WWE Gimmicks Actually Got Over
11. Liv Morgan
Liv Morgan once saddled herself with the most rotten persona in wrestling today: Good Wrestler Who Works Hard And Who Could Be Great, If She Only Got Some Damn TV Time.
This half-worked under Vince McMahon, because he was so absurdly inept that he ruined almost everything and everyone in his later years as a promoter. WWE was a graveyard of promising talent. It was always his fault. Many wrestlers felt like budding prospects, even if they weren’t.
Under Triple H, the ruse was revealed because, while he’s not exactly peak Jerry Jarrett, he is mostly very competent. In an inverse of the Clash At The Castle success stories, Morgan defended her SmackDown Women’s title against Shayna Baszler - and while the action was passable, it was the only match to barely garner a response from an otherwise wildly enthusiastic, under-served crowd. Two key moments elevated Morgan into the main event bracket.
The first was a moment of weird wrestling serendipity. Sometimes, suffering or inflicting an injury, the worst thing to happen, is paradoxically also the best. Steve Austin might disagree, but the neck injury he suffered at SummerSlam 1997 forced the WWF to devise creative workarounds to use him on TV. Those workarounds became the Attitude Era blueprint. Conversely, the otherwise thoroughly unmarketable Chris Benoit got over as ‘The Crippler’ after breaking Sabu’s neck. As much of an antique as the hellcat gimmick was, it was undeniably over, and it made incredible use of Morgan’s ultra-fierce, incredibly expressive facial expressions.
The second was a massive over-delivery of a match against, of all people, Zelina Vega on the July 1, 2024 Raw. Morgan had already become a star; this is when she became a wrestler who actually got the TV time and got great.