15 EXACT Moments Failed WWE Attitude Era Gimmicks Actually Got Over
5. Ken Shamrock (August 3, 1997)
He was a weird one, Ken Shamrock. He was selectively over. Sometimes he came off like a total badass with an unparalleled intensity that sent the crowd f*cking nuts. His act was sometimes a bit cringeworthy when it looked like he felt what he was doing was too fake. Even when it was all too real - as with his WWF debut proper against Vader at In Your House: A Cold Day In Hell - it was too stiff for the given audience. In the ring, he could be a bit boring, as if he was trying to talk himself through the mechanics of it all and not just simply “being”.
He was over, then not over, then over again. The material and his handling of it dictated his popularity. He could not headline with Shawn Michaels, but he could, appropriately enough, wreck dudes to awesome effect in the Lion’s Den cage. While it didn’t always last, he first got over and honed his red mist-drenched psycho character at SummerSlam 1997. Prior to that, he was mostly a credible killer who let his grappling do the talking. This wasn’t big nor broad enough for the world of the WWF.
At SummerSlam, were he to defeat the British Bulldog for the European title, the Bulldog would have to eat dog food. This didn’t happen; Bulldog threw the dog food over Shamrock, who went bat-sh*t mental and got himself disqualified. Various referees and officials tried to calm him down, but they became targets for his frenzy. This ruled so goddamn hard; Shamrock went so mental that he almost dropped various refs on their heads, throwing them down on the mat so hard that he seemed to temporarily forget that this WWF lark was actually a work. The hard-way busted mouth added to the idea that he was livid.
He screamed “Stay out of my way!” - which was later tweaked to “I’m in my zone”, which wasn’t quite as good. Strange to get a catchphrase out when you take leave of your senses, but whatever. It worked a lot of the time.