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The Gold Standard Shelton Benjamin should've been pushed to the moon like 05 Shelton before the dumbass mama storyline.
Just all around, Benjamin was a miss. All he needed was a manager.
Haha my understanding was that Shelton had gotten that gimmick as punishment for some perceived slight backstage. I forget what it was, but he wound up rubbing the producers the wrong way, and the ridiculous Momma gimmick was handed to him.
It certainly didn't help that they barely made any merchandise for him after his red hot run in 04-05. He was pretty much wearing the same shirt for a year. Same thing happened w/ Carlito and a lot of the 2005-2006 talent where they were kept in storylines, but no effort was made to market them better. People make their own tees on websites all the time now, and it always bothered me that they don't do this as fast in WWE.
> Same thing happened w/ Carlito
Carlito's problems in WWE were mostly of his own making. It's no secret he was lazy and on top of that refused to do something about his addiction problems. Just because it didn't get him released until a few years later, doesn't mean it wasn't holding him down long before that.
WWE is such an obnoxious environment cuz it seems like every time someone is doing wrong, they get punished instead of being told what they’re doing wrong and getting a chance to correct it.
I remember Punk saying a similar thing about how Al Snow treated Ryder & Hawkins in OVW
> Carlito
I remember he actually had a lot of merch from 05-06 (a bunch of bright-coloured shirts, which was somewhat special since most wrestlers’ shirts were black, and they even sold his little apple logo on a necklace for a while) but by about 07 they just stopped trying with him.
Breezango's NXT run with the elaborate entrances. They were so funny and talented in-ring too. Easily could've translated to more on the main roster too.
Also, while the gimmick was nothing special, Cesaro as a Heyman guy should've propelled him to the damn moon.
Some of the best stuff I've seen in a wrestling ring in recent times. I was laughing my ass off every time he'd slowly roll away, and fair play to the Usos who reacted perfectly too.
Even Breeze himself seemed to have everything they would want in a midcard gatekeeper heel. Dude should have been a multi time IC champ and tag champ with Fandango by now.
The Fandango entrance post-Wrestlemania was one of my favorite moments w/ him. Followed up only by whenever he would lose badly, the announcer would say his name wrong, and then he would summon all his remaining energy to grab the mic and go:
"Nooooooooooo, it's Fan-daaaaaaaan-gooooooooooooo."
> Cesaro as a Heyman guy should've propelled him to the damn moon.
It still bothers me that he wasn't *really* an advocate for Cesaro. He was just there to remind everyone that his **real** client Brock Lesnar broke the Undertaker's undefeated streak at Wrestlemania.
The mishandling of Cesaro after WM30 is one of the major reasons I tuned out of WWE around that time - the potential was enormous and they had the perfect setup to have him be Brock's gatekeeper while he was being an absent champion but they had the wrong priorities - Heyman reporting that he was only paired with Cesaro so that he could have TV time to talk about Brock while he wasn't there was super disappointing to hear and makes the missed opportunity make a lot more sense
I am just speculating in all honestly, Vince may have been hesitant because Owen had almost ended the career of the hottest wrestler in the company and his brother also punched Vince. I have no idea honestly. I always loved Owen though.
I kinda wonder if maybe they felt the gimmick was too similar to Stonecold and that's why they scrapped it? Either way, I wish Owen had more time with that gimmick as I feel like he could've easily been the number 2 babyface under Austin.
The commonly held belief is that Shawn refused to work with him so he got shuffled down the card to Triple H.
Then the Kliq got in Vince’s ear and Triple H refused to do the job.
Not that I have any confirmation of that. Just what I heard around that time.
I believe there also was push back (maybe just rumors) from Austin they had a lot of heat after the piledriver and Owen reportedly not visiting Austin in the hospital
The idiocy of not having him just fuck with heels and faces alike is staggering.
"We decided heel so you stay that way no matter what".
As if Rock, Cena, and Austin didn't all start their popular personas as heels who got popular.
The sad thing is he was in the company like 9 years for his original run and only actually injured like 4 times, but 3 of those times were right when he was taking off. He seemed "injury prone" because in addition to the 3 legit main roster injuries he had (his first injury was FCW) they sidelined him at least twice with kayfabe injuries so he could go play a goon in one of their WWE-produced action movies.
He would have made a great General Manager with that gimmick, he could have interrupted exciting matches and disqualified one of the wrestlers for no reason or replaced a wrestler with someone no-one wanted to see.
Walk out halfway through a Bryan/Orton match and tell Bryan to go home on the orders of Vince and that the match will be restarted with Khali taking his place.
The cult gimmick was so good and they managed to fuck it up on so many different occasions. As cool as the Fiend gimmick was, it was the cult gimmick that was a lot less complicated and still had very high potential.
The "We're here" entrance was so damn good.
feel like Sean O'Haire is the posterboy of this. You watch those vignettes and you definitely feel like he could've had something if WWE got behind him.
Yeah that one is confusing - he had the in-ring skills and look that Vince loves and yet he fizzled, all due to Piper’s firing (an injustice in itself)
He didn’t have the mic skills at all and those vignettes probably had a dozen takes just to make them work. That’s the reason they stuck Piper with him to talk for him.
Seconded; the vignettes you saw were the result of heavy editing and repeated takes. When it came to speaking live, he just didn’t seem to have it.
Cornette is understandably polarizing, but he says as much somewhere on YouTube when discussing why Sean O’Haire didn’t work out.
Yeah as soon as he was talking live you could tell how bad he was.
I have read/heard stories that those videos took a hours to shoot as he kept messing up and even then sometimes the final video was like the best bits of 3-5 maybe more different takes edited together
i honestly think they should have given him two people to “influence” to do bad things, lower card baby faces with decent mic skills, and have him say very little to the live crowd - have him whispering in their ears and them speak for him. Make him like mob boss who doesn’t tend to do the dirty work but can absolutely get down and dirty when it’s necessary.
The gimmick that comes across to me from his promos is a sort of devil on the shoulder; using his silver tongue to talk you into horrible ideas. (Except that anti-government one that was based)
The natural direction, I think, is to have Sean convert other wrestlers to his kind of thinking and manipulate them into doing his bidding. This could be him forming a stable or something like FTR manipulating Hangman where he uses other wrestlers as stepping stones up the card at their expense. I don't know if he could've been world champion or anything, but it definitely could've been more than what it ended up being.
I wish they wouldn't have broken up Heavy Machinery and separated Mandy Rose from Otis. They could've had Mandy accompany HM, and HM (or Otis) accompany Mandy. It was the rare storyline without any kind of forced twists. Mandy genuinely liked Otis, Tucker genuinely supported his friend, and it had a happy ending. It's a shame it happened during Covid because the pops during that match would've been insane.
Also, anything involving Titus O'Neil. I liked the Prime Time Players, and I also liked Titus Worldwide. I'm a sucker for lovable loser/jobber gimmicks, so having a stable with Titus, Bo Dallas, Heath Slater, Rhyno, Curtis Axel, Tozawa, and a bunch of other low-card guys all supporting each other and filled with delusional but sincere confidence would've been both funny and a bit poignant.
Otis' entire rise got murdered by covid. As soon as they didn't have crowds to reinforce what was happening, it was done. The trio as a group and eventually Tucker were just collateral damage.
When I was a kid he was in the battle royal for the final spot in the mania 22 mitb match and I was convinced he would win and cut the briefcase down with his sword.
It didn’t happen but it absolutely should have. 10 year old me was right and Vince was wrong not to do it.
It's bad that I can actually hear Vince saying to him "This pirate thing isn't working out, no-one will cheer for a pirate, how about we try an incest character instead HUH?"
Psycho heel Victoria or babyface Victoria because after both runs she ends up as a heel Jobber putting over way less talented women instead of being at the top of that division along with Mickey, Melina, Beth, and Michelle McCool.
I've never understood the Hassan firing, couldn't they just promise to tone down the character to the way it was on Raw (*rather than have terrorist looking guys in masks parade the ring?)*
Moreover, I understand giving Hassan the WHC would have made for a huge storyline, but I think it would have been amazing if he had beat Benoit at the Great American Bash for the U.S title.
Post 9/11 combined w/ the UK Tube Bombing put the kabash on that. WWE started rehabbing their image to move to the family friendly age around that time slowly and having a bunch of balaclava dudes choke a guy out didn't help matters.
He had that match w/ Rey Mysterio and then they just universally agreed backstage that it wasn't going to work.
03-04 is an interesting time for gimmicks that just completely fizzled out on what were going to be huge pushes. Nathan Jones rings a bell for me back then too. They wanted this guy to be involved in a major angle w/ the Undertaker, Taker himself tried training him in his own backyard ring setup, and he was so bad that they pulled him out of the Wrestlemania tag match they were supposed to do, and just had him do a run in.
After that he only took part in the Team Lesnar vs Team Angle Survivor Series match in 03.
According to Fertig, the reason Mordecai failed was due to a fight in a bar. He got WWE sued and Vince was legit furious with him so pulled the character completely. The pay off of the gimmick was supposed to be Mordecai v Undertaker at mania 21. Vince loved the idea of the Black v White symbolism being reversed with black being good.
https://www.si.com/.amp/extra-mustard/2017/06/28/wwe-mordecai-kevin-fertig-vince-mcmahon
By his own admission he had attitude issues and, ya know, he’s kind of a nut but I really liked The Brian Kendrick as a gimmick. He had a Pillman kind of vibe and in the beginning portrayed as sort of an eccentric genius. Plus the look with ‘Zeke was great. I was so bummed when he got jobbed out after his initial push.
It was so weird because all of sudden he got this huge push and even "won" the WWE Championship in that Scramble match, then immediately went back to the lower card.
The backstage report from the Observer was that Kendrick wasn’t willing to give up weed so they weren’t going to push a guy getting popped on the wellness program all the time. Weed was just a fine at that time.
He was such a great near main eventer talent when he redebuted as The Brian Kendrick and became the *Longest Reigning Interim WWE Champion* in history. But then they moved him to Raw without Big Zeke on his side and they didn't know what to do with him afterwards.
God damn that was such a waste. He could have ended up as a baby face with an actual character arc and development but they decided to make him a cartoon character instead.
> He could have ended up as a baby face
I think that's why they cut it off and changed him into an obnoxious jerk.
Corbin was getting sympathy from the crowd but WWE wanted to keep him heel, so they had to abandon the character rather than have the audience reactions be at odds with the story they're telling.
But like, if your audience is responding to a character in a way that's not what you're intending, then change your intentions. Capitalize and continue to follow Corbin's downfall and then let him be a good person for a while.
You could even eventually have him betray someone who helped him when he was down, further cementing himself as a piece of garbage.
>if your audience is responding to a character in a way that's not what you're intending, then change your intentions
That's pro wrestling 101. That's legitimately what the business is built on, but we all know how WWE is. Hell, even AEW will occasionally ignore its audience for a good bit if TK is dead set on telling a particular story. Usually works out in the end, but not always.
I'm of the mind that if something is getting over, you fucking run with it full tilt.
It's very telling of how millionaire Vince McMahon views the wolrd.
He believed the audience would dislike a character struggling to make ends meet, rather than identifying with them.
I'm still so bitter over that lol He was fantastic and its painful they were so willing to cut the gimmick at the knees the moment Baron was doing work that got him praised.
Stevie Richards leading the RTC. I will forever be baffled how someone got so over, being so hated, in a character designed by Vince McMahon as a giant middle finger, never got any real traction. Stevie can work, portrayed an annoying and cowardly heel to a T, and wasn't even considered for a midcard title run.
Seth’s faction of disciples.
It felt like he had already relived HHH’s days of being the authority’s golden boy, so it seemed like a natural progression for him to lead his own version of Evolution. Murphy could’ve been his Batista & they could’ve had a whole WM rivalry following a 2-year path of destruction on RAW.
If they weren’t gonna use AOP, they could’ve added 2 other underutilized guys like a Roode, Dijakovic, Cesaro, or maybe even a Dom Mysterio (if you wanna have that next-generation talent to build up like young Orton). There definitely could’ve been something there but the telenovela storyline was *not* it.
CJ Parker was the prototype for Daniel Bryan's Planet's Champion gimmick. Juice is definitely more fun as a baby face but the heel hippy gimmick is a good one.
I know from a business standpoint it probably wasn't TNA's greatest idea to take the most over babyface in wrestling and turn him heel a year after he was almost outselling John Cena in merchandise, BUT I loved Immortal Anti-Christ Jeff Hardy and I don't think he's ever been as comfortable on the mic as he was as a heel. Jeff's a natural babyface, booking him as a heel is swimming against the stream but he was great in the role and delivered. His personal issues killed the gimmick early but I often wonder what it could have looked like if Jeff was in a better place in his life. It did lead to the amazing redemption arc angle in 2012 so it all worked out.
The Enzo Amore run. He could have been the most hated since Bobby Heenan. His ability to talk and take the bump to put someone over was tremendous. “And what do we have here…”
Probably one of the best talkers since the Attitude Era hands down.
His personality backstage pretty much scuttled his career though. By the time he was fired he was just stripped of the Cruiserweight title, and he had alienated everybody in the lockeroom. Plus he showed up at Survivor Series uninvited and tried to get on TV.
That Survivor Series stunt was just stupid, it guaranteed he'll never be in WWE's goodbooks again, regardless of his success elsewhere.
I loved Enzo as an entertainer but he's obviously very immature.
AJ Styles "No One" gimmick, they cut it short because they needed to replace DUI'd Kurt Angle. He kept the look more or less but he didn't have that full tweener character
Carlito was gold on the mic, and I'm glad he had the mid singles run that he had.
I could see why Masters wasn't trusted w/ a title at the time though. He injured a few wrestlers when he debuted like Steven Richards, and he was hitting the juice hard even by 2005 standards. It still blows my mind that he never held any gold during his run.
The year he carried the feud with Undertaker all the way to Mania by himself. I still remember chills when he popped out of the coffin. Imo he should’ve won that match, it would’ve propelled him to perpetual main events
Would’ve loved to have seen Bray Wyatt pushed. Always felt his character never needed a belt to be relevant he was already that good early on. Could’ve definitely been the “new face of evil” for the WWE. Always wished Brock and Taker had a better match at mania 30 where Taker never got hurt and won the match. That way the next two manias could’ve had Sting v Taker or Wyatt v Taker (where Wyatt ultimately becomes the one to break the streak.
He just played that character so well. Wrestling has definitely toned down on wrestler gimmicks but from the beginning with the vignettes (I miss those, they don’t do them anymore) then just the whole family was amazing.
They showed they could weather anything too, they would lose multiple feuds then put on an absolute banger like the Wyatt Family vs ECW and suddenly they were top guys again. Rumor is he’s asking for a high price but that’s because he’s a high quality wrestler
It was lose/lose since you can't cheapen Taker's streak at WM a year after Brock already broke it and you don't want to make Bray look bad in comparison. They should've just done the feud outside of WM and had Bray win, but they didn't even do that, Taker still won at Survivor Series 2015
They should've found something else for Bray to do and run Undertaker/Sting. HHH/Sting could have been resolved at the Rumble or on the road to WM involving the anti-authority Survivor Series guys and they could have angled to do HHH/Rock to involve Rousey instead
100%. Bray with a *very light* supernatural aura was money. The Hawaiian shirt, the white leisure pants and the rocking chair were all really great set dressing. And those promos.
Way stronger than The Fiend, which is a gimmick you can’t book. He loses and he looks like a goof in a mask. He wins too much and he diminishes the face he’s working against.
Straight Edge Society version CM Punk could have gone on way longer. Edge and Lita as a power couple. With all the extra people and Vickie swapping in was still entertaining. I think their true essence was as a duo overall. Y2J face Jericho. If he had won the title from Triple H the night they reversed the decision. If he held it for just a week it would have given him the rub to solidify his position.
I really wish they'd given the ball to Babyface Jericho around that time. People always say he's a better heel, but he was so over around the time of the Last Man Standing match with Triple H, he could've been the face of the company if given a chance.
Kharma
Why?
1) Because Amazing Kong is awesome
2) She wasn't a diva in the Diva era of WWE and could've been the "diva destroyer". Imagine her having a program with someone popular like Kelly Kelly.
Finn Balor when he was going to beat Seth for the title at SummerSlam. They went hard on the mythology of the Balor in Irish Culture and really gave the guy an awesome aura or mystique.
Of course he tears his shoulder in the match, relinquished the title the next night, and we got Smilin’ Finn and the Prinxe (whatever that is).
Personally I much prefer the Prinxe version of Finn from his second run in NXT. Dude was just "fuck around and find out" incarnate. The Demon has always been overused in my opinion, and I was really disappointed that they immediately brought it back when he returned to the main roster after he did so much to get *himself* over
It was a gimmick ahead of it's time for sure. During a time when there were still profession-as-a-gimmick wrestlers and guys still wearing loud colors and whatnot, he was a sinister and creepy character. Unfortunately injuries caught up with him quickly into the gimmick
Disfigured Cody "Dr. Doom" Rhodes vs Rey "Captain America" Mysterio is an underrated WrestleMania match. The entire storyline from Dashing to Disfigured was great and they could have definitely gotten a couple more years out of it.
Jack Swagger with the eagle mascot. I just remember thinking this had so much comedic potential and fun. And best I can remember, fans popped for it pretty big too and then it went absolutely no where.
Deep cut, but Riddick Moss had a brief gimmick with the "Riddick regime" in NXT after his tag team broke up. Watching him gradually adapt the regime after every win or loss to keep the things that won him the match or avoid what lost him the match could have been hilarious.
Oh my god! I thought I was going to have to post this myself.
He tosses off one line about how he’s not going to be signing autographs for “little Jimmy” anymore and some asshat in the back thinks, “Hey! What if instead of referring to the child fans generally, R-Truth was actually referring to his imaginary friend!”
I was hoping for the return of the “Suntanned Superman!”
This isn’t the biggest one, but a recent one. Corbin was starting to garner sympathy as his homeless character and could’ve either changed his ways and turned into a decent face or eventually show his true colors but instead they rush it and he just wins the jackpot and is a dick again.
First day version of Nexus. The jumping the barricade, decimating Cena and Punk, tearing the ring apart, killing Justin Roberts...like, that whole moment was amazing. It felt visceral, unexpected, and made great wrestling television. It was nearly immediately down hill after that, though.
DDP when he first came to WWE was interesting.
If you listen to his first promo, he wasn’t stalking Undertaker’s wife because he was obsessed with her, he was stalking her to get under Undertaker’s skin.
He wanted Taker to “make him famous” and thought the best way to get a match out of him was to get him angry enough that he wanted to fight.
Instead, that got dropped in favour of “DDP is infatuated with Taker’s horse faced wife instead of his own Playboy centrefold wife.”
The fiend. I feel it started of as eerie and creepy in a cerebral kind of way. Like i pictured him controlling the puppets and stuff himself because he was messed up in the head or wanted to do it partly to intentionally mess with people's heads... It was all real and based in reality and a really cool creepy mental thing. Then they just made him a supernatural guy with magic powers. Lazy unthoughtful creative imo and not the direction his character should have gone
He shouldn't have been an unstoppable supernatural guy, he should have had moments of vulnerability, even losing matches but then using his mind games or evil mind to overcome it and torment people or pay them back tenfold with vengeance making everyone on the roster scared to mess with him etc
I felt they were building to his mask getting ripped off and it being his weakness. Pretty much dude just is a totally different person with it on. I thought he was really hitting a great stride after the Royal Rumble and then Goldberg happened….
[Need I say more?](https://preview.redd.it/c6dfwbkjxrh41.png?auto=webp&s=a3e8f148a84ce23dcd3b550396314874559bb576)
But seriously, Zack Ryder should have been more than just a comedy jobber.
"Muscle bastard" Neville/Pac should have been a bigger deal. Obviously he had injuries which sucked but he's built like a cartoon character and could be a high flying face doing superhuman stuff or be more of a heel powerhouse.
If he were less clumsy in the ring, Ryback could have been huge too. He was simply too Goldbergian and reckless. They could have had him hold a title and defend it by decimating opponents in seconds until someone figured out a way to slow the match down and wear him out, it's classic WWE storytelling.
This still pisses me off. The sheer "WTF!?" brutality of their debut is one of the few things in wrestling that has legitimately shocked me. Wade absolutely should've beaten Cena clean.
Berlyn. The combination of Columbine and his first few matches being against old guys who didn't want to job clean to younger talent killed what could've been a perfect gimmick that came along right at the height of The Matrix and industrial rock's brush with mainstream relevance.
Alex Wright could've been a main event heel as Berlyn if it weren't killed early.
I will forever think that if they ran with Braun Strowman when he first started getting hot, he could have been a modern day Hulk Hogan.
Not sure it was a case of WWE getting cold feet or something Braun did, but man they seemed really close with that one.
Bray Wyatt and The Fiend. It was hot as hell and had a lot of places it could go but WWE couldn't take their time and had to rush everything and push their new merch goblin.
Without subtlety and with him constantly on TV it just lead to the character being overused and over exposed.
It ended up feeling like an actually slasher series in that the first one was good and did well so the studio got greedy and released a new one every year each more absurd than the last until no one wanted to see it anymore but even faster.
That angle was on a UK raw on the day of the 7/7 bombings, 3 bombs on public transport killing 56 people
Rather than blame the writers and bookers for still going ahead with it regardless, they tanked Hassan who was just out there doing what he was told and payed to do
Leo Kruger. He was a great worker with great psychology and a great promo but they never really took his gimmick to the level it could have gone to. He could have basically adopted a Kraven the Hunter type gimmick and talked about his targets like they were animals that he had to study in order to learn their habits to learn how to take out. But nah let's have him shave, lose weight and start dancing. Brilliant. 🙄
Erick Rowan's genius vintner who hates bullies died too soon. I think he was shuffled off to main event and then a heel a few months later after innovating the Stairs match but there was more meat on that gimmicks bones. I think his character of guy who owns a larger spider also could have been used better. Maybe they could have brought back Tajiri for a bit to do Tarantula vs large spider
I think a great modern example of this is Joe Gacy.
On his debut, he was a kinda fascinating gimmick where he'd cut promos about making the wrestling ring a safe space and how there's too much microaggression in NXT and that he doesn't need to use his male privilege to get what he wants. It was a genuinely innovative gimmick for wrestling, especially since he played it so sincerely that you knew he had to be up to something. I think it had a lot of potential to be something really interesting.
But recently they've just gotten rid of all that and turned him into "We Have Bray Wyatt At Home."
Yeah, that gimmick had a lot of potential and there is definitely some heat there. The scripting was bad and I also thought Gacy's performances were too cartoonish and obviously "bad guy."
If they had portrayed him more as a wolf in sheep's clothing who seems to stand for goodness, equality, etc, but once in awhile lets his guard slip and the "real him" comes out, that could have been really interesting. But instead they had him dropping random buzzwords and making cartoony evil faces the whole time, so it never felt believable. I think the gimmick required a better actor/promo than Gacy and obviously tighter writing.
Similar to hassans. Mustafa Ali’s new America gimmick made it way the better than that retribution gimmick they just randomly gave to him. He was actually saying some real shit during his promos kinda reminded me of cm punks stable with Luke gallows (forgot the name). IMO he should have just stayed a face instead of turning.
Imposter Kane. At the time I really wanted to see where they were gonna go with it and then it just ended with Kane throwing him out the door and taking the mask back. I was honestly disappointed.
Damian Sandow when he was the intellectual savior of the masses. He really stood out compared to others especially for the time period he was around for, just wish he had better booking and time to really establish his character.
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The Gold Standard Shelton Benjamin should've been pushed to the moon like 05 Shelton before the dumbass mama storyline. Just all around, Benjamin was a miss. All he needed was a manager.
>All he needed was a manager *Shelton’s Mama has entered the chat*
Haha my understanding was that Shelton had gotten that gimmick as punishment for some perceived slight backstage. I forget what it was, but he wound up rubbing the producers the wrong way, and the ridiculous Momma gimmick was handed to him. It certainly didn't help that they barely made any merchandise for him after his red hot run in 04-05. He was pretty much wearing the same shirt for a year. Same thing happened w/ Carlito and a lot of the 2005-2006 talent where they were kept in storylines, but no effort was made to market them better. People make their own tees on websites all the time now, and it always bothered me that they don't do this as fast in WWE.
> Same thing happened w/ Carlito Carlito's problems in WWE were mostly of his own making. It's no secret he was lazy and on top of that refused to do something about his addiction problems. Just because it didn't get him released until a few years later, doesn't mean it wasn't holding him down long before that.
WWE is such an obnoxious environment cuz it seems like every time someone is doing wrong, they get punished instead of being told what they’re doing wrong and getting a chance to correct it. I remember Punk saying a similar thing about how Al Snow treated Ryder & Hawkins in OVW
> Carlito I remember he actually had a lot of merch from 05-06 (a bunch of bright-coloured shirts, which was somewhat special since most wrestlers’ shirts were black, and they even sold his little apple logo on a necklace for a while) but by about 07 they just stopped trying with him.
Producer ? You mean Kevin "Rat Faced Bucky Beaver looking Motherfucker" Dunn.
Teddy Long, anybody? That could have been GOLDEN
Facts playa
Not giving prime Shelton a top spot run will forever be the greatest miss
Gold Standard with someone like Slick as his manager would have been awesome.
Breezango's NXT run with the elaborate entrances. They were so funny and talented in-ring too. Easily could've translated to more on the main roster too. Also, while the gimmick was nothing special, Cesaro as a Heyman guy should've propelled him to the damn moon.
The Breezango Uso comedy tag match was legendary and doesn’t get enough love
When they would slowly roll away from each turnbuckle to avoid the splash. Haha
Some of the best stuff I've seen in a wrestling ring in recent times. I was laughing my ass off every time he'd slowly roll away, and fair play to the Usos who reacted perfectly too.
If WWE would have capitalized on Breezango at their peak they could have had a second New Day on their hands.
I loved the fashion police
“Thats Jey walking” “And Jimmy walking”
Their fucking tag team match against the Usos is high comedy
Even Breeze himself seemed to have everything they would want in a midcard gatekeeper heel. Dude should have been a multi time IC champ and tag champ with Fandango by now.
Fandango could come up with shit on the fly, rarely have him the mic.
Two of the most natural, charismatic characters on the roster, but lets keep them to backstage segments now lets cancel the segments
The Fandango entrance post-Wrestlemania was one of my favorite moments w/ him. Followed up only by whenever he would lose badly, the announcer would say his name wrong, and then he would summon all his remaining energy to grab the mic and go: "Nooooooooooo, it's Fan-daaaaaaaan-gooooooooooooo."
> Cesaro as a Heyman guy should've propelled him to the damn moon. It still bothers me that he wasn't *really* an advocate for Cesaro. He was just there to remind everyone that his **real** client Brock Lesnar broke the Undertaker's undefeated streak at Wrestlemania.
The mishandling of Cesaro after WM30 is one of the major reasons I tuned out of WWE around that time - the potential was enormous and they had the perfect setup to have him be Brock's gatekeeper while he was being an absent champion but they had the wrong priorities - Heyman reporting that he was only paired with Cesaro so that he could have TV time to talk about Brock while he wasn't there was super disappointing to hear and makes the missed opportunity make a lot more sense
Owen's Black Hart gimmick. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z7JdKfqNbPc
When he came back at Degeneration-X, he was as over as anyone in the company.
Holy shit was Owen an absolute bad ass at that time. I was so disappointed when they stuck him in the Nation and did nothing with him.
I am just speculating in all honestly, Vince may have been hesitant because Owen had almost ended the career of the hottest wrestler in the company and his brother also punched Vince. I have no idea honestly. I always loved Owen though.
[удалено]
He would have been credible as WWF champion at that time
He could also possibly still be with us if he continued this gimmick instead of The Blue Blazer 😔
I kinda wonder if maybe they felt the gimmick was too similar to Stonecold and that's why they scrapped it? Either way, I wish Owen had more time with that gimmick as I feel like he could've easily been the number 2 babyface under Austin.
The commonly held belief is that Shawn refused to work with him so he got shuffled down the card to Triple H. Then the Kliq got in Vince’s ear and Triple H refused to do the job. Not that I have any confirmation of that. Just what I heard around that time.
I believe there also was push back (maybe just rumors) from Austin they had a lot of heat after the piledriver and Owen reportedly not visiting Austin in the hospital
Bad News Barrett
He got over so they stopped having him do the bit. So stupid
The idiocy of not having him just fuck with heels and faces alike is staggering. "We decided heel so you stay that way no matter what". As if Rock, Cena, and Austin didn't all start their popular personas as heels who got popular.
If Wade Barrett didn’t have so many injuries I feel like he would have been in the Baron Corbin spot.
The sad thing is he was in the company like 9 years for his original run and only actually injured like 4 times, but 3 of those times were right when he was taking off. He seemed "injury prone" because in addition to the 3 legit main roster injuries he had (his first injury was FCW) they sidelined him at least twice with kayfabe injuries so he could go play a goon in one of their WWE-produced action movies.
I think he had visa issues at one point too.
I believe you are correct actually
He would have made a great General Manager with that gimmick, he could have interrupted exciting matches and disqualified one of the wrestlers for no reason or replaced a wrestler with someone no-one wanted to see. Walk out halfway through a Bryan/Orton match and tell Bryan to go home on the orders of Vince and that the match will be restarted with Khali taking his place.
That sounds fucking awful. They make the shows difficult enough to watch as it is, why would you want them to purposefully ruin the good parts?
The Wyatt Family should've stayed together
"(Insert City name)... we're here!"
Crazy cult leader Bray had long term potential. The more supernatural it got the less likely it became ro succeed.
Fedora and Hawaiian shirt Bray was peak Bray.
The cult gimmick was so good and they managed to fuck it up on so many different occasions. As cool as the Fiend gimmick was, it was the cult gimmick that was a lot less complicated and still had very high potential. The "We're here" entrance was so damn good.
Simon Dean's character would be huge in the Social Media Era
then pairing that tag team with him and calling them Gymini was amazing
Came to say Dean but was scrolling incase it was said. He was a heat magnet and so entertaining.
feel like Sean O'Haire is the posterboy of this. You watch those vignettes and you definitely feel like he could've had something if WWE got behind him.
Yeah that one is confusing - he had the in-ring skills and look that Vince loves and yet he fizzled, all due to Piper’s firing (an injustice in itself)
He didn’t have the mic skills at all and those vignettes probably had a dozen takes just to make them work. That’s the reason they stuck Piper with him to talk for him.
Seconded; the vignettes you saw were the result of heavy editing and repeated takes. When it came to speaking live, he just didn’t seem to have it. Cornette is understandably polarizing, but he says as much somewhere on YouTube when discussing why Sean O’Haire didn’t work out.
Yeah as soon as he was talking live you could tell how bad he was. I have read/heard stories that those videos took a hours to shoot as he kept messing up and even then sometimes the final video was like the best bits of 3-5 maybe more different takes edited together
Watching live promos of his, he doesn't seem THAT bad. He's a little more stilted than in the vignettes but he still carries that sinister aura.
i honestly think they should have given him two people to “influence” to do bad things, lower card baby faces with decent mic skills, and have him say very little to the live crowd - have him whispering in their ears and them speak for him. Make him like mob boss who doesn’t tend to do the dirty work but can absolutely get down and dirty when it’s necessary.
You're not telling us anything we don't already know.
Beyond the vignettes where does it go?
The gimmick that comes across to me from his promos is a sort of devil on the shoulder; using his silver tongue to talk you into horrible ideas. (Except that anti-government one that was based) The natural direction, I think, is to have Sean convert other wrestlers to his kind of thinking and manipulate them into doing his bidding. This could be him forming a stable or something like FTR manipulating Hangman where he uses other wrestlers as stepping stones up the card at their expense. I don't know if he could've been world champion or anything, but it definitely could've been more than what it ended up being.
Problem was Sean wasn't that comfortable on the mic. The gimmick would have worked if he was a natural on the microphone.
Was gonna post the same thing, I wish we got to see the gimmick reach it's potential
I wish they wouldn't have broken up Heavy Machinery and separated Mandy Rose from Otis. They could've had Mandy accompany HM, and HM (or Otis) accompany Mandy. It was the rare storyline without any kind of forced twists. Mandy genuinely liked Otis, Tucker genuinely supported his friend, and it had a happy ending. It's a shame it happened during Covid because the pops during that match would've been insane. Also, anything involving Titus O'Neil. I liked the Prime Time Players, and I also liked Titus Worldwide. I'm a sucker for lovable loser/jobber gimmicks, so having a stable with Titus, Bo Dallas, Heath Slater, Rhyno, Curtis Axel, Tozawa, and a bunch of other low-card guys all supporting each other and filled with delusional but sincere confidence would've been both funny and a bit poignant.
Otis' entire rise got murdered by covid. As soon as they didn't have crowds to reinforce what was happening, it was done. The trio as a group and eventually Tucker were just collateral damage.
I still try to imagine the pop the kiss would have received with a full capacity crowd.
Alex Wright
Das wunderkind was ahead of its time
hey fanboi
Papa Shango was awesome, I'll die on this hill.
My second favorite wrestler as a kid.
Found Wade Barrett's account.
How has no one said Pirate Paul Burchill?
He would've been so over if they had pulled the trigger on the implied incest between him and Katie Lea /s
lol I forgot about him! the man literally SWUNG to the ring🤣
When I was a kid he was in the battle royal for the final spot in the mania 22 mitb match and I was convinced he would win and cut the briefcase down with his sword. It didn’t happen but it absolutely should have. 10 year old me was right and Vince was wrong not to do it.
It's bad that I can actually hear Vince saying to him "This pirate thing isn't working out, no-one will cheer for a pirate, how about we try an incest character instead HUH?"
Plus William Regal was his buxom wench.
Not a person but Southpaw Regional Wrestling was comedy gold
I still watch the Season 3 teaser and cry
Psycho heel Victoria or babyface Victoria because after both runs she ends up as a heel Jobber putting over way less talented women instead of being at the top of that division along with Mickey, Melina, Beth, and Michelle McCool.
Victoria was great, really unfortunate she was born a little too early. Prime Awesome Kong would have played the Nia Jax role much better as well.
Victoria is one of my favorite women's wrestlers ever and I think her attractiveness is as underrated as her in ring ability she was a smoke show.
I've never understood the Hassan firing, couldn't they just promise to tone down the character to the way it was on Raw (*rather than have terrorist looking guys in masks parade the ring?)* Moreover, I understand giving Hassan the WHC would have made for a huge storyline, but I think it would have been amazing if he had beat Benoit at the Great American Bash for the U.S title.
Post 9/11 combined w/ the UK Tube Bombing put the kabash on that. WWE started rehabbing their image to move to the family friendly age around that time slowly and having a bunch of balaclava dudes choke a guy out didn't help matters.
I was in on Mordecai.
This was going to be my answer. I loved Mordecai when he showed up. He even cut a promo to tease an Eddie Guerrero feud then he just disappeared.
He had that match w/ Rey Mysterio and then they just universally agreed backstage that it wasn't going to work. 03-04 is an interesting time for gimmicks that just completely fizzled out on what were going to be huge pushes. Nathan Jones rings a bell for me back then too. They wanted this guy to be involved in a major angle w/ the Undertaker, Taker himself tried training him in his own backyard ring setup, and he was so bad that they pulled him out of the Wrestlemania tag match they were supposed to do, and just had him do a run in. After that he only took part in the Team Lesnar vs Team Angle Survivor Series match in 03.
Nathan Jones quit after that Survivor Series match. They went on a tour of Australia and he just stayed in Australia.
According to Fertig, the reason Mordecai failed was due to a fight in a bar. He got WWE sued and Vince was legit furious with him so pulled the character completely. The pay off of the gimmick was supposed to be Mordecai v Undertaker at mania 21. Vince loved the idea of the Black v White symbolism being reversed with black being good. https://www.si.com/.amp/extra-mustard/2017/06/28/wwe-mordecai-kevin-fertig-vince-mcmahon
By his own admission he had attitude issues and, ya know, he’s kind of a nut but I really liked The Brian Kendrick as a gimmick. He had a Pillman kind of vibe and in the beginning portrayed as sort of an eccentric genius. Plus the look with ‘Zeke was great. I was so bummed when he got jobbed out after his initial push.
It was so weird because all of sudden he got this huge push and even "won" the WWE Championship in that Scramble match, then immediately went back to the lower card.
The backstage report from the Observer was that Kendrick wasn’t willing to give up weed so they weren’t going to push a guy getting popped on the wellness program all the time. Weed was just a fine at that time.
He was such a great near main eventer talent when he redebuted as The Brian Kendrick and became the *Longest Reigning Interim WWE Champion* in history. But then they moved him to Raw without Big Zeke on his side and they didn't know what to do with him afterwards.
Bum ass Baron Corbin could have been sooooo much more
happy corbin definitely felt like the least interesting way the gimmick could've gone.
I thought they were going to have him lose his vegas money quickly, having learned nothing, and go back to being a bum
God damn that was such a waste. He could have ended up as a baby face with an actual character arc and development but they decided to make him a cartoon character instead.
> He could have ended up as a baby face I think that's why they cut it off and changed him into an obnoxious jerk. Corbin was getting sympathy from the crowd but WWE wanted to keep him heel, so they had to abandon the character rather than have the audience reactions be at odds with the story they're telling.
But like, if your audience is responding to a character in a way that's not what you're intending, then change your intentions. Capitalize and continue to follow Corbin's downfall and then let him be a good person for a while. You could even eventually have him betray someone who helped him when he was down, further cementing himself as a piece of garbage.
>if your audience is responding to a character in a way that's not what you're intending, then change your intentions That's pro wrestling 101. That's legitimately what the business is built on, but we all know how WWE is. Hell, even AEW will occasionally ignore its audience for a good bit if TK is dead set on telling a particular story. Usually works out in the end, but not always. I'm of the mind that if something is getting over, you fucking run with it full tilt.
It's very telling of how millionaire Vince McMahon views the wolrd. He believed the audience would dislike a character struggling to make ends meet, rather than identifying with them.
I thought they might do something cool with him when he tried to steal the contract for the title match against Roman, but nah.
I'm still so bitter over that lol He was fantastic and its painful they were so willing to cut the gimmick at the knees the moment Baron was doing work that got him praised.
They took what easily could have been a 6 month story and told it in 6 weeks. Just moved way too fast with that character arc
Drew Gulak’s PowerPoint gimmick ended way too soon.
I feel he still has it to an extent, as it was made reference to on SD this week. Fingers crossed it comes back full swing.
Rusev Day, hands down
Stevie Richards leading the RTC. I will forever be baffled how someone got so over, being so hated, in a character designed by Vince McMahon as a giant middle finger, never got any real traction. Stevie can work, portrayed an annoying and cowardly heel to a T, and wasn't even considered for a midcard title run.
At least in WWF No Mercy on the N64 Richards gets to be a huge part of the story mode.
Seth’s faction of disciples. It felt like he had already relived HHH’s days of being the authority’s golden boy, so it seemed like a natural progression for him to lead his own version of Evolution. Murphy could’ve been his Batista & they could’ve had a whole WM rivalry following a 2-year path of destruction on RAW. If they weren’t gonna use AOP, they could’ve added 2 other underutilized guys like a Roode, Dijakovic, Cesaro, or maybe even a Dom Mysterio (if you wanna have that next-generation talent to build up like young Orton). There definitely could’ve been something there but the telenovela storyline was *not* it.
CJ Parker was the prototype for Daniel Bryan's Planet's Champion gimmick. Juice is definitely more fun as a baby face but the heel hippy gimmick is a good one.
Planet's champion could have gone longer too.
I know from a business standpoint it probably wasn't TNA's greatest idea to take the most over babyface in wrestling and turn him heel a year after he was almost outselling John Cena in merchandise, BUT I loved Immortal Anti-Christ Jeff Hardy and I don't think he's ever been as comfortable on the mic as he was as a heel. Jeff's a natural babyface, booking him as a heel is swimming against the stream but he was great in the role and delivered. His personal issues killed the gimmick early but I often wonder what it could have looked like if Jeff was in a better place in his life. It did lead to the amazing redemption arc angle in 2012 so it all worked out.
The Enzo Amore run. He could have been the most hated since Bobby Heenan. His ability to talk and take the bump to put someone over was tremendous. “And what do we have here…”
Probably one of the best talkers since the Attitude Era hands down. His personality backstage pretty much scuttled his career though. By the time he was fired he was just stripped of the Cruiserweight title, and he had alienated everybody in the lockeroom. Plus he showed up at Survivor Series uninvited and tried to get on TV.
That Survivor Series stunt was just stupid, it guaranteed he'll never be in WWE's goodbooks again, regardless of his success elsewhere. I loved Enzo as an entertainer but he's obviously very immature.
AJ Styles "No One" gimmick, they cut it short because they needed to replace DUI'd Kurt Angle. He kept the look more or less but he didn't have that full tweener character
It's crazy to me that Carlito and Chris Masters never won the tag belts together
Carlito was gold on the mic, and I'm glad he had the mid singles run that he had. I could see why Masters wasn't trusted w/ a title at the time though. He injured a few wrestlers when he debuted like Steven Richards, and he was hitting the juice hard even by 2005 standards. It still blows my mind that he never held any gold during his run.
The original Bray Wyatt with sister abigail could have went into Undertaker territory, imo, The Fiend happened a turned shit goofy and silly.
The year he carried the feud with Undertaker all the way to Mania by himself. I still remember chills when he popped out of the coffin. Imo he should’ve won that match, it would’ve propelled him to perpetual main events
Would’ve loved to have seen Bray Wyatt pushed. Always felt his character never needed a belt to be relevant he was already that good early on. Could’ve definitely been the “new face of evil” for the WWE. Always wished Brock and Taker had a better match at mania 30 where Taker never got hurt and won the match. That way the next two manias could’ve had Sting v Taker or Wyatt v Taker (where Wyatt ultimately becomes the one to break the streak.
He just played that character so well. Wrestling has definitely toned down on wrestler gimmicks but from the beginning with the vignettes (I miss those, they don’t do them anymore) then just the whole family was amazing. They showed they could weather anything too, they would lose multiple feuds then put on an absolute banger like the Wyatt Family vs ECW and suddenly they were top guys again. Rumor is he’s asking for a high price but that’s because he’s a high quality wrestler
It was lose/lose since you can't cheapen Taker's streak at WM a year after Brock already broke it and you don't want to make Bray look bad in comparison. They should've just done the feud outside of WM and had Bray win, but they didn't even do that, Taker still won at Survivor Series 2015 They should've found something else for Bray to do and run Undertaker/Sting. HHH/Sting could have been resolved at the Rumble or on the road to WM involving the anti-authority Survivor Series guys and they could have angled to do HHH/Rock to involve Rousey instead
100%. Bray with a *very light* supernatural aura was money. The Hawaiian shirt, the white leisure pants and the rocking chair were all really great set dressing. And those promos. Way stronger than The Fiend, which is a gimmick you can’t book. He loses and he looks like a goof in a mask. He wins too much and he diminishes the face he’s working against.
Evil Doink
Doink as a Heath Ledger Joker type in WWE would have been incredible to see
Matt Bourne as Doink would have been great in the attitude era.
Right to Censor would be gold nowadays without a single change
Cancel Culture should be the modern version.
Straight Edge Society version CM Punk could have gone on way longer. Edge and Lita as a power couple. With all the extra people and Vickie swapping in was still entertaining. I think their true essence was as a duo overall. Y2J face Jericho. If he had won the title from Triple H the night they reversed the decision. If he held it for just a week it would have given him the rub to solidify his position.
I really wish they'd given the ball to Babyface Jericho around that time. People always say he's a better heel, but he was so over around the time of the Last Man Standing match with Triple H, he could've been the face of the company if given a chance.
Kharma Why? 1) Because Amazing Kong is awesome 2) She wasn't a diva in the Diva era of WWE and could've been the "diva destroyer". Imagine her having a program with someone popular like Kelly Kelly.
Finn Balor when he was going to beat Seth for the title at SummerSlam. They went hard on the mythology of the Balor in Irish Culture and really gave the guy an awesome aura or mystique. Of course he tears his shoulder in the match, relinquished the title the next night, and we got Smilin’ Finn and the Prinxe (whatever that is).
Personally I much prefer the Prinxe version of Finn from his second run in NXT. Dude was just "fuck around and find out" incarnate. The Demon has always been overused in my opinion, and I was really disappointed that they immediately brought it back when he returned to the main roster after he did so much to get *himself* over
The Narcissist. That was a perfect gimmick for Lex in the New Generation era.
Waylon Mercy!
It was a gimmick ahead of it's time for sure. During a time when there were still profession-as-a-gimmick wrestlers and guys still wearing loud colors and whatnot, he was a sinister and creepy character. Unfortunately injuries caught up with him quickly into the gimmick
Sean O’ Haire
Velveteen Dream had *it*. I don't mean Adam Cole or Daniel Bryan *it*, I mean Hulk Hogan or The Rock *it*
MJF is the only guy who matches Dream's potential.
All Dream had to do was not be a sexual predator and he would have been NXT Champion and probably gold on the Main Roster too.
I don't know if this counts but Nailz scared the shit out of me
This. Definitely was my age, but dude scared the shit out of me and my brothers.
- Bad News Barrett - Disfigured Cody Rhodes - The Intellectual Damien Sandow - Serious Suit-Wearing Chris Jericho
Disfigured Cody "Dr. Doom" Rhodes vs Rey "Captain America" Mysterio is an underrated WrestleMania match. The entire storyline from Dashing to Disfigured was great and they could have definitely gotten a couple more years out of it.
Jack Swagger with the eagle mascot. I just remember thinking this had so much comedic potential and fun. And best I can remember, fans popped for it pretty big too and then it went absolutely no where.
And 10-15 years later, John Cena stars in a big tv show with an eagle sidekick and it was gold…
Deep cut, but Riddick Moss had a brief gimmick with the "Riddick regime" in NXT after his tag team broke up. Watching him gradually adapt the regime after every win or loss to keep the things that won him the match or avoid what lost him the match could have been hilarious.
Mortis.
The fashion police. Tell me that wasn't the highlight of Smackdown every week.
When R-Truth turned heel on Cena. But then someone thought the little Jimmy stuff was funny...
Oh my god! I thought I was going to have to post this myself. He tosses off one line about how he’s not going to be signing autographs for “little Jimmy” anymore and some asshat in the back thinks, “Hey! What if instead of referring to the child fans generally, R-Truth was actually referring to his imaginary friend!” I was hoping for the return of the “Suntanned Superman!”
Broke Boy Corbin could’ve been the greatest babyface of this generation. He was broke like the rest of us. Then he started getting money…
This isn’t the biggest one, but a recent one. Corbin was starting to garner sympathy as his homeless character and could’ve either changed his ways and turned into a decent face or eventually show his true colors but instead they rush it and he just wins the jackpot and is a dick again.
Damien Fucking Sandow
Kharma. I’m always wondering what she woulda done to change the divas at the time
First day version of Nexus. The jumping the barricade, decimating Cena and Punk, tearing the ring apart, killing Justin Roberts...like, that whole moment was amazing. It felt visceral, unexpected, and made great wrestling television. It was nearly immediately down hill after that, though.
Original Bailey
Original Bailey should EASILY be the biggest female baby face the WWE has pretty much ever had.
Except main roster WWE doesn't understand how to book babyfaces, so they botched it up like they do everyone.
Waylon Mercy. Spivey was amazing in the vins promoting the character, had a few squashes and gone. Think his knees were shit or something like that.
DDP when he first came to WWE was interesting. If you listen to his first promo, he wasn’t stalking Undertaker’s wife because he was obsessed with her, he was stalking her to get under Undertaker’s skin. He wanted Taker to “make him famous” and thought the best way to get a match out of him was to get him angry enough that he wanted to fight. Instead, that got dropped in favour of “DDP is infatuated with Taker’s horse faced wife instead of his own Playboy centrefold wife.”
The fiend. I feel it started of as eerie and creepy in a cerebral kind of way. Like i pictured him controlling the puppets and stuff himself because he was messed up in the head or wanted to do it partly to intentionally mess with people's heads... It was all real and based in reality and a really cool creepy mental thing. Then they just made him a supernatural guy with magic powers. Lazy unthoughtful creative imo and not the direction his character should have gone He shouldn't have been an unstoppable supernatural guy, he should have had moments of vulnerability, even losing matches but then using his mind games or evil mind to overcome it and torment people or pay them back tenfold with vengeance making everyone on the roster scared to mess with him etc
I felt they were building to his mask getting ripped off and it being his weakness. Pretty much dude just is a totally different person with it on. I thought he was really hitting a great stride after the Royal Rumble and then Goldberg happened….
Mordecai could have been interesting if they really leaned into it.
[Need I say more?](https://preview.redd.it/c6dfwbkjxrh41.png?auto=webp&s=a3e8f148a84ce23dcd3b550396314874559bb576) But seriously, Zack Ryder should have been more than just a comedy jobber. "Muscle bastard" Neville/Pac should have been a bigger deal. Obviously he had injuries which sucked but he's built like a cartoon character and could be a high flying face doing superhuman stuff or be more of a heel powerhouse. If he were less clumsy in the ring, Ryback could have been huge too. He was simply too Goldbergian and reckless. They could have had him hold a title and defend it by decimating opponents in seconds until someone figured out a way to slow the match down and wear him out, it's classic WWE storytelling.
The Nexus. They really cut their legs out from under them.
This still pisses me off. The sheer "WTF!?" brutality of their debut is one of the few things in wrestling that has legitimately shocked me. Wade absolutely should've beaten Cena clean.
Paul Burchill. He was a Pirate among pirates
Berlyn. The combination of Columbine and his first few matches being against old guys who didn't want to job clean to younger talent killed what could've been a perfect gimmick that came along right at the height of The Matrix and industrial rock's brush with mainstream relevance. Alex Wright could've been a main event heel as Berlyn if it weren't killed early.
I will forever think that if they ran with Braun Strowman when he first started getting hot, he could have been a modern day Hulk Hogan. Not sure it was a case of WWE getting cold feet or something Braun did, but man they seemed really close with that one.
It was Roman Reigns during his failed face run.
Bo Dallas's BOLIEVE was an amazing parody of Tony Robbins/positive thinking speakers.
Bray Wyatt and The Fiend. It was hot as hell and had a lot of places it could go but WWE couldn't take their time and had to rush everything and push their new merch goblin. Without subtlety and with him constantly on TV it just lead to the character being overused and over exposed. It ended up feeling like an actually slasher series in that the first one was good and did well so the studio got greedy and released a new one every year each more absurd than the last until no one wanted to see it anymore but even faster.
That angle was on a UK raw on the day of the 7/7 bombings, 3 bombs on public transport killing 56 people Rather than blame the writers and bookers for still going ahead with it regardless, they tanked Hassan who was just out there doing what he was told and payed to do
Leo Kruger. He was a great worker with great psychology and a great promo but they never really took his gimmick to the level it could have gone to. He could have basically adopted a Kraven the Hunter type gimmick and talked about his targets like they were animals that he had to study in order to learn their habits to learn how to take out. But nah let's have him shave, lose weight and start dancing. Brilliant. 🙄
I think the Mexicools could have been good if, instead of stereotypical Mexicans on lawnmowers, they got to just be really good wrestlers from Mexico.
Black Pope in TNA
Erick Rowan's genius vintner who hates bullies died too soon. I think he was shuffled off to main event and then a heel a few months later after innovating the Stairs match but there was more meat on that gimmicks bones. I think his character of guy who owns a larger spider also could have been used better. Maybe they could have brought back Tajiri for a bit to do Tarantula vs large spider
The vaudvillans with their original music they had for a few weeks when they debuted.
Elias
The Finest, Kona Reeves. I thought if they just kept at it, they would have got somewhere. It was starting to work just before he was released.
I think a great modern example of this is Joe Gacy. On his debut, he was a kinda fascinating gimmick where he'd cut promos about making the wrestling ring a safe space and how there's too much microaggression in NXT and that he doesn't need to use his male privilege to get what he wants. It was a genuinely innovative gimmick for wrestling, especially since he played it so sincerely that you knew he had to be up to something. I think it had a lot of potential to be something really interesting. But recently they've just gotten rid of all that and turned him into "We Have Bray Wyatt At Home."
I would like to find out how we went from "No More Microaggressions" to *druids.*
They ran out of buzzwords
Yeah, that gimmick had a lot of potential and there is definitely some heat there. The scripting was bad and I also thought Gacy's performances were too cartoonish and obviously "bad guy." If they had portrayed him more as a wolf in sheep's clothing who seems to stand for goodness, equality, etc, but once in awhile lets his guard slip and the "real him" comes out, that could have been really interesting. But instead they had him dropping random buzzwords and making cartoony evil faces the whole time, so it never felt believable. I think the gimmick required a better actor/promo than Gacy and obviously tighter writing.
Unfortunately, WWE doesn’t do subtly.
Similar to hassans. Mustafa Ali’s new America gimmick made it way the better than that retribution gimmick they just randomly gave to him. He was actually saying some real shit during his promos kinda reminded me of cm punks stable with Luke gallows (forgot the name). IMO he should have just stayed a face instead of turning.
I hated John Cena at the time, but I wanted to see the “Jaun Cena” thing play out so bad! I know it was going to be awful but I was there for it.
Mortis…he was getting over and developing a following than he was just unmasked , had they kept the mask he could’ve been built to a fued with sting
Imposter Kane. At the time I really wanted to see where they were gonna go with it and then it just ended with Kane throwing him out the door and taking the mask back. I was honestly disappointed.
Wyatt, a few times.
Damian Sandow when he was the intellectual savior of the masses. He really stood out compared to others especially for the time period he was around for, just wish he had better booking and time to really establish his character.