50 Absolute Worst Things WWE Has Done In The 21st Century

Here it is: Heidenreich's worst crime.

Road Warrior Animal needed a partner to wrestle MNM for the tag titles at The Great American Bash 2005. Rather than positioning some hot up and comer as a one off ally for the legend, WWE's writers decided on something else. Jon Heidenreich would become a fully-fledged member of LOD alongside Animal. LOD 2005 was born, and it was an abomination.

Heidenreich painted his face to reflect his newfound status as the deceased Hawk's replacement after the new fangled LOD won the belts from Johnny Nitro and Joey Mercury on pay-per-view. This didn't work or connect with fans. Heidenreich was released from this contract by January 2006, which meant Animal had to awkwardly stumble around in a rubbish WWE singles run you totally don't remember before he also left the company a few months later.

LOD 2005 will go down in history as one of WWE's worst experiments. In truth, they'd already dabbled with a "new" Road Warriors by having Animal team with Droz in 1998 and 1999. That hadn't worked either, but at least fans accepted Drozdov to a point. The same couldn't be said for big Jon. He was a clumsy, uncoordinated powerhouse who lacked necessary fundamentals in-ring and on the mic.

Longtime fans of the Road Warriors who had followed the team since the NWA days were insulted by the change, and Heidenreich replacing Hawk was a poor tribute to the fallen original's memory. Not even a spiky colour change from red to white could help freshen things up.