9 Wrestling Gimmicks That Took YEARS To Get Over

2. Mark Henry's Hall Of Pain Wasn't Built In A Day

LA Knight WWE
WWE.com

It's a good thing Mark Henry signed a 10-year contract with WWE back in 1996 because it pretty much took him the length of that entire first deal to finally find a main event-level character that worked.

Most of those years were spent working within the Nation of Domination, experimenting with a 'Sexual Chocolate' gimmick, testing his strength on WWE programming, and being managed by none other than Teddy Long.

None of those personas ever really led to the 'World's Strongest Man' becoming a real player on the WWE roster, though, and it wasn't until his violent return from a torn quadriceps in 2005 when the pieces finally started to fall into place for the intimidating powerhouse.

After taking out Batista on SmackDown, this new heel force went on to collide with the likes of World Heavyweight Champion Kurt Angle and The Undertaker before unfortunately going down injured again in 2006.

And while the next few years would see the savage big man whooping ass a little further down the card and even messing around in the tag team division with various partners as a babyface for a spell, Henry was eventually given the chance to fully grow into the dominant heel he'd shown glimpses of being during that impactful 2005/6 run.

In 2011, The Big Show, Kane, The Great Khali, Sheamus, and Randy Orton were all brutally inducted into a 'Hall of Pain' he first starting building six years earlier.

During this period of long-awaited supremacy, the destroyer also went on to finally lift World Heavyweight Championship gold as his helpless adversaries crumbled before him and those watching on were regularly left picking their jaws up off the floor.

Contributor
Contributor

Lifts rubber and metal. Watches people flip in spandex and pretends to be other individuals from time to time...