It's hard to create a great wrestling character: for every Rock, there's 10 Man Mountain Rocks, and for every Kane, there's 10 Isaac Yankems. But with the right talent, and the right push, a star can be made. Sometimes that star begins to fade, though, and sometimes WWE likes to get cute, which is invariably a bad combination. The company then tweaks a formula that was once working too far, and fans end up now rejecting a former favourite. Every once in a while, a drastic turn for a character works. After all, when The Rock first began talking in the third person, it seemed a bit out there. But fans adjusted quickly, and that change to his act paid off tremendously. More often, though, big gimmick changes fall flat and are painful to watch. WWE would have been better off not tweaking something that was already working. Worst of all, some of the talent whose gimmick was "enhanced" never recovered at all. Here are 10 unforgivably stupid gimmicks that ruined otherwise great characters.
As Rust Cohle from True Detective said "Life's barely long enough to get good at one thing. So be careful what you're good at."
Sadly, I can't solve a murder like Rust...or change a tire, or even tie a tie. But I do know all the lyrics to Hulk Hogan's "Real American" theme song and can easily name every Natural Born Thriller from the dying days of WCW. I was once ranked 21st in the United States in Tetris...on the Playstation 3 version...for about a week.
Follow along @AndrewSoucek and check out my podcast at wrestlingwithfriends.com
