15 WWE Gimmick Changes That IMMEDIATELY Backfired
3. Albert Chants Plague Lord Tensai
Hatching a brand new character on the traditionally rowdy edition of Raw after WrestleMania was always going to be tricky, but WWE thought it'd work for Lord Tensai in 2012. So, they brought Giant Bernard in from New Japan. However, instead of using his old Albert or A-Train names, they went full tilt with a fanciful repackage. Bernard became Tensai, an apparent warrior who had returned to destroy everything.
Sadly, the only thing Tensai crushed was Matt Bloom’s spirit.
Various introductory vignettes aired in the lead up his debut on the 2 April 2012 Raw. Again, that was the night after 'Mania XXVIII, and so raucous fans made Tensai’s debut hell. Immediately, they trolled him with chants of, “Albert! Albert! Albert!”, and the gimmick fizzled out from there. It was, without doubt, one of the worst nightmare debuts anybody has ever experienced.
The whole thing blew up in WWE's face as soon as Lord Tensai stepped foot through the curtain for his squash match win over Alex Riley. Fans in attendance live for Raw did not care about the match one bit, nor did they entertain thoughts that the former A-Train was some vicious new character flying in from Japan to rag doll the rest of the WWE roster.
He was Albert, formerly known as Prince Albert. In other words, he was a walking penis piercing joke, and he was there to be ridiculed. This had to be torturous for Bloom. He'd done some excellent work as part of a tag-team with Karl Anderson in New Japan, yet here he was looking like a gimmick that wouldn't have been out of place on Superstars in 1991.