The One WWE Gimmick That Was Too Offensive Even For Vince McMahon

Dan Madigan shared his most infamous creation while speaking to Power Slam magazine in 2008.

Baron Von Bava - and fair play to Madigan for taking ownership of this idea, because it's batsh*t - was to be a Nazi storm trooper put into storage via cryogenic freezing in the 1940s. He'd then be thawed out and unleashed upon the wrestling world to spread fascist terror and fear in 2004, with Heidenreich taking the role accompanied by his manager, Paul Heyman.

Paul Heyman, a Jewish man, would be managing a man enacting the will of Adolf Hitler 59 years after the Nazi dictator's death.

"To make the story more insane, I wanted Heyman, a Jewish New Yorker, to be the one to revive the baron and bring him to SmackDown," Madigan told Power Slam. "I thought it would be a scream!"

A scream.

But would Von Bava be presented more like a Hans Schmidt or an outright Nazi? One would think the latter, given changes in societal standards, but no. Heidenreich would have portrayed a full-on fascist, goose-stepping and all. The backstory had German scientists putting him on ice to guarantee that one of their greatest soldiers would be around to keep their legacy alive for future generations and having spent the best part of six days removed from humanity, Von Bava would've had no understanding of why, exactly, his behaviour was unacceptable.

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