9 Times WWE's Attitude Era Broke The Rules Of Professional Wrestling

9. The Open Rejection Of Character

Beaver Cleavage
WWE.com

The Headbangers made their return to World Wrestling Entertainment on SmackDown Live recently, and whilst they may have been unsuccessful against Heath Slater and Rhyno they still inspired pangs of nostalgia in many fans of my age. We may have remembered the skirt-wearing duo for a variety of reasons, but hardened WWE fans will remember one particularly regrettable incident.

After The Headbangers tenure had come to an end Mosh was repackaged as Beaver Cleavage, a mommy's boy who had an unhealthy obsession with his mother's bosoms. This was guaranteed to bomb, and the gimmick was dropped after Mosh gave a promo giving up on the character. It wasn't the first example of a performer abandoning their character in-canon, but it was certainly one of the most memorable.

Until the Attitude Era, there was something sacrosanct about the pro wrestling character. Performers were expected to live their character, with the most famous example being Vince McMahon's insistence that 'The Million Dollar Man' Ted DiBiase live his gimmick outside of the ring.

The Attitude Era did away with this, acknowledging the performers behind the gimmicks and even giving them opportunities to display their anger with them on-camera.

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Born in the middle of Wales in the middle of the 1980's, John can't quite remember when he started watching wrestling but he has a terrible feeling that Dino Bravo was involved. Now living in Prague, John spends most of his time trying to work out how Tomohiro Ishii still stands upright. His favourite wrestler of all time is Dean Malenko, but really it is Repo Man. He is the author of 'An Illustrated History of Slavic Misery', the best book about the Slavic people that you haven't yet read. You can get that and others from www.poshlostbooks.com.