3 Wrestlers who overcame awful gimmicks and 3 who couldn't
When Vince McMahon decided to turn his father's regional outfit into a national product, he realised he was going to have to spin the boring regional wrestlers into larger than life characters. He necessitated characters that would captivate young audiences and cause parents to depart with their hard earned cash.
With his business plan firmly in order, he promoted his stars with gusto and reaped magnificent benefits. Characters like Hulk Hogan, Andre the Giant and "Rowdy" Roddy Piper became mainstream entertainment fixtures. Of course, not all the character ideas were brilliant. In one instance, McMahon hired skilful wrestlers like Terry Taylor and Harley Race to portray a human rooster and a king.
However, there were some men that were able to find prosperity despite their faulty characters. Here is a list of 3 wrestlers who conquered their awful characters and 3 wrestler who couldn't.
#6 Overcame: Brutus Beefcake
As Brutus Beefcake describes it, the "Barber" gimmick was given to him by WWE road agent Pat Patterson as a joke. It was at the height of the 80s boom, and Beefcake had just turned into a wrestling good guy. Patterson thought it would be comical to give Beefcake, who was already saddled with a tongue-in-cheek identity, a pair of giant hedge clippers and have him strut in front of the crowd.
But in true pro wrestling form, you can never tell which way the crowd will lean. One would have expected the masses to jeer Beefcake, but instead, they accepted him with open arms. His popularity soared so high that he was scheduled to win the WWE Intercontinental Championship in 1990 before a parasailing accident forced him into early retirement.
#5 Couldn't overcome: Lord Tensai
This had to be a Vince McMahon creation. If it isn’t his idea, I can almost guarantee that he backed it up and thought it was going to be huge.
They couldn’t tell you exactly what this gimmick was supposed to be. Other than someone knew that Matt Bloom did a stint in Japan so that automatically makes him a Samurai. I’m sensing a trend here. Making one race, a complete opposite race and hoping it works!
Matt Bloom returned to the ring as Lord Tensai in 2012 to a great start. He was undefeated for a while against the likes of John Cena and CM Punk. Eventually, even the WWE knew this wasn’t working. They reduced him to a comedy act at the end of 2012. Pairing him with Santino Marella, who would call him ‘Fat Albert’, before succeeding in a match and defeating Tensai. Yes. Even Santino holds a victory over Lord Tensai!
While Matt Bloom may have been a force to reckon with in Japan, his return in 2012 most definitely is a force of something else. The possible main eventer quickly flopped. Soon enough we would find him wearing women’s lingerie. Yes, that did happen when Tensai and another one of our horrible gimmicks were in a tag team together.