15 MORE Failed Experiments From WWE Developmental
3. Duke Hudson: Poker Player
Duke Hudson: Poker Player did't exactly make sense in its own context. However, there was such a bizarre normality to a wrestler having an outlandish gimmick around the time he was at the tables that the chintzy nature of it all didn't exactly have folk clutching pearls like they would for a Canadian Destroyer not being sold long enough several years earlier.
Perhaps they should have done.
In the 2.0 era, Hudson had already been used as a guy who was constantly DTF, but as approximately 80% of the roster ostensibly had the same gimmick at the time, he was recast as a man who very literally held all the cards. We learned this through vignettes, and even those sitting in the free Performance Center seats could infer that his poker skills were transferrable when the bell rang. And that's if they'd forgotten all about his entire main roster run as Brendan Vink during the pandemic.
Alas, it didn't translate all that well - particularly when he hosted in-ring card games and lost most of the time! Historically, fans back winners, and that extends to whatever side-job the pro wrestler keeps alongside being a pro wrestler. It was back to the drawing board and eventually back to school for Duke, who became the best hot tag in the business as part of Chase University before his enormously perplexing 2025 release.