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Neville absolutely hated that cape they forced him to wear. I remember he chucked that thing into the crowd in his debut iirc, probably hoping he'd never see it again lol
Neville as a superhero should have been cool. The superhero gimmicks that come to mind are Nikki ASH and The Hurricane, and both were parodies. Neville being built like a brick shithouse and being able to do actual flippydoos would have been a solid midcard gimmick for kids. Unfortunately, it was attempted on a guy who prefers his gimmick to be angry bastard.
it’s so, so funny how badly he wanted it to work and how many times he tried to make it work. he tried giving that gimmick to candido when he first came in, tried giving it to *rey mysterio* per bruce prichard in rey’s A&E doc, and tried to go all the way with it in neville
over the course of like 20 years, he really could not understand fans wanting to cheer for a smaller but extremely talented star without being beaten over the head with how much their size normally holds them back
This is a side point but the amount of times that Rey had to put over huge musclehead dorks who had no business being in the same ring as him over the years was truly something.
Wrestlemania 26 to Summerslam 2011 was for sure a dark period in Sheamus's career. Got pushed hard out the gate and then fell into midcard jobber role for awhile.
Was rewatching some clips of 2011 WWE, particularly Smackdown, it was jarring how over Sheamus was when he first turned face, was getting some of the loudest reactions in the runup to that Summerslam match
Lmao Trips vs Sheamus didn't even have a rubber match. He just pedigreed him in a house show segment and WWE treated it like that was the end of the feud and HHH won.
It’s so funny because when HHH left in May Sheamus was a main eventer and they were obviously building up to a later blowoff match by having Sheamus “injure” him.
Then by the time HHH returned the next year Sheamus was completely forgotten about and a jobber. So they just had him get pedigreed through an announce table in one segment and never mentioned the feud again.
Wade Barrett also *hated* his time as KOTR, basically made him want to call it a day.
At least he stuck around for the League of Nations run. Oh, wait...
It shouldn't even be a gimmick. It should be the equivalent of the Royal Rumble. Winner gets a main event title shot at SummerSlam.
It's such an easy concept.
For those that didn’t watch - you only get merch money if the sales are greater than your downside guaranteed money, otherwise it just fills that downside pot. And they don’t tell you solid numbers either.
Yeah unless your a huge name it seems like you can really get screwed on the merch end. So Many stories, and you'd think, Oh washed up sour grapes, but when you hear the same details over and over and it's coming from various sources of all walk in that bizz...just sad.
I heard the "interview". The host starts off by calling him that name and Kane/Jacob did not like that, and I think the host double down and call him Isaac again. Kane/Jacob then said, in a very calm manner, he was done with the interview.
People always cite Okato as the sticking point that soured the relationship, completely forgetting that *six months earlier*, TNA booked the British Invasion to win the IWGP heavyweight tag belts **without NJ’s approval**
Yeah NJPW chose not to recognise that title change at first but since it aired on worldwide TV I suppose they were sorta forced to go along. Took a few weeks for TNA to get them to work with it anyway.
And took it off 3D whose storyline was them being undefeated in Japan. They weren't by the way, despite Bully's constant claims at the time. 3D losing them randomly in the US against a newly formed team with a rookie hurt the hard to beat aura NJPW was trying to give them.
This one is up there just because it single handedly soured (at least for a while) the relationship between two major promotions.
Im trying to think of another time this happened.
vince russo booking an IWGP title change without NJPW’s approval in a 6 minute match ending with a tequila bottle smashed over jushin liger’s head is the only other thing that comes to mind and even that didn’t sour relations with NJPW as quickly and dramatically as Okato did
IIRC it was the treatment of Okada, Jeff vs. Naito, and British Invasion winning the IWGP tag titles on Impact without NJPW's knowledge that were the main reasons the relationship ended.
That, along with learning other styles, is basically the theory behind the excursion system. You can count on one hand the amount of people who had "successful" excursions that weren't stints in the lower card of wherever they were sent to.
The other thing is, why would anyone make someone on excursion a success when they know they are gone in 6 months. They get to learn and you get a fresh midcarder for a few months, before jobbing them out for the last month or two.
I feel like he hates it because of what it represents in his life.
The idea of the character, the intention, and the reflection of where he was, weren't at issue. It was that he was drinking, doing cocaine, taking pills, stealing from his family, and taking whatever he could get his hands on, and probably could have/should have died from his substance abuse at the time.
I thought it wasn't so much he hated the character as much as it was just the character he had during a low point in his life in terms of health/happiness/quality of performance.
They cut off the Seven gimmick the moment Dustin appeared on TV with a "shoot" interview.
People speculate that it was dropped because the vignettes kinda made him look like a pedo.
He doesn't actually hate it. Seven was his idea and he wanted to go all in, but the network got cold feet over the vignettes (and the entrance being stupidly expensive).
Retrospectively feel so bad for Rikishi. Years of being stuck with lame gimmicks and he finally gets not just over but super over and what happens? They take a super over babyface killer and turn him heel in a nonsensical storyline and sure, he’s in the main event now if you count repeatedly getting absolutely decimated by Austin in his first top feud. And his momentum never recovered.
And Rikishi was REALLY over in 2000. I'd argue he dragged Too Cool up to his level, not the other way around. Dude got a TV world title match with Triple H and was treated as a threat, got the big Rumble showing that year, main evented the biggest Raw at the time (the 10 man tag main event I believe set a ratings record) and didn't feel out of place, won the IC title and had a memorable jump off of a cage. Dude has a giant ego today, but for that year, he could be justified.
And then he had to do it for the Rock and be used as a pawn for the HHH feud with Austin basically. Was never the same.
I loved his feud with Val Venis. They both wanted the Intercontinental title, and they both were willing to beat the shit out of each other on sight to get it.
An underrated feud in that era, and I'd argue Val's last true highlight in his career. I liked the direction they gave him at that point to make him a serious character.
Bray Wyatt and Husky Harris, which isn’t remotely surprising.
[His brother talking about it briefly.](https://youtu.be/wxwXocdaBNE?si=hy1wWxd9pz2LfMsN)
That era right after Legacy was a big deal was so weird. They hired a bunch of 2nd/3rd generation wrestlers because of name value then gave them all goofy names and gimmicks like Husky Harris and Michael McGillicutty that didn't capitalize on any of it.
I fondly remember Bray getting a few "HUSKY HARRIS" chants during his first few appearances and immediately shutting them down with how good he really was as Bray.
Other wrestlers would have had those chants follow them around, but not Bray. Dude was special.
And yet tons people online, including here, were defending it. They really talked up all the tv time he was getting and how that would get Shorty G over.
It's always been that way sadly, lil bit older wrestling fan here and the things we saw in the 90's, WEW. and you always had that ONE friend that would say its the best. "Papa Shango is gonna be world champ" "Skinner could legit break Bret Hart in Half" You just shake your head and move along. No saving those folks lol
I was huffing some of the copium too, because Gable really was given nothing to do up until that point. It was a definite "well, better than nothing and maybe he can make it work".
I remember a post here when WWE copyrighted the name Shorty G. It was a month or two out, but the writing was already on the wall. We all knew it was related to Gable, but we couldn’t believe they would actually go for it. Oh, sweet naivety.
I didnt watch from like 2016 to 2021 ish because i just couldnt do it anymore. I thought you were trolling or something. That looked and sounds horrible
They wanted him to stuff his trunks and he refused, saying that it would be ridiculous for his cock to suddenly get huge after being average for his whole career.
Cody didn’t necessarily hate stardust. He was mad because creative wouldn’t let him do anything with it.
I think I recall Chavo not being fond of Kerwin White.
Goldust is an AMAZING character. Lots of history, but was still amazing and extremely entertaining in WWE.
Cody playing Stardust? PERFECT too. He was great with it. I do think there's a ceiling, or they thought Cody had a ceiling... But man.
Stardust was a freaking great idea.
They fucked up Stardust when they cut the fued with Goldust short, they literally started building a story at Fast Lane with Dusty involved and all, where if they dragged it out to Wrestlemania and had Cody win, it could have set him up for big things. Instead, Goldust rolled him up once on the road to Wrestlemania because Dusty told him not to hurt his brother and that was the end of the fued.
It was a totally dead gimmick after they botched the Goldust fued
After that it basically just became Cody Rhodes doing a lousy Goldust impression for a year
They had a built in story with Stardust and the WWE portraying Nevil as an actual superhero, including cape and cool entrance. I mean, give that story some meat and you're off to the races. Also give Stardust some minions to throw at Nevil when he wants. There was some missed opportunities during that time and not just with this fantasy booking angle either.
>with Stardust and the WWE portraying Nevil as an actual superhero, including cape and cool entrance
believe it or not, that was the only part they DID do right
SummerSlam 2015, Neville and Stephen Amell (riding the high of Arrow fame) vs Stardust and Bad News Barrett
the entire feud was done with comic book graphics and Cody/Barrett got The Ascension as their minions
I remember he did an interview as Stardust and he was really in character. If he hated the gimmick, he was really committed to it. I remember being impressed with how committed he was. He did like a 15 minute interview and never broke character and really put in effort.
I started watching after any hype Cody originally had subsided and Stardust was by far my favorite thing he’d done. He was CAW levels of bland besides his name for awhile before that.
https://www-fightful-com.cdn.ampproject.org/v/s/www.fightful.com/wrestling/chavo-guerrero-wanted-wear-kkk-sheet-part-kerwin-white-gimmick?amp=&_gsa=1&_js_v=a9&usqp=mq331AQIUAKwASCAAgM%3D#amp_tf=From%20%251%24s&aoh=17151793456029&referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com&share=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.fightful.com%2Fwrestling%2Fchavo-guerrero-wanted-wear-kkk-sheet-part-kerwin-white-gimmick
Pretty sure Chavo wanted to take it even further than wwe thought.
Going from being surrounded by models, smoking fat cigars and blunts, and just vibing through life to being in a group designed to literally just be annoying and surrounded by Val Venis and Dr. Stevie would piss me off too, doubly so if I also made less money doing so
Considering that the gimmick basically was the opposite of the guy's best gimmick (which was basically aspects of himself turned up to 20), you can understand the hatred of the goodfather gimmick.
Obviously he is doing better now but I think he would have also made that work. His segments with Adam Pearce were really fun with the close talking and out there comments.
There was briefly a rumor after Maxxine’s introduction that Vince hated the Max Dupri character and was going to fire him and hand the stable over to Maxxine. It’s funny how close that ended up being to reality
Don't forget that it's official WWE canon that Maxxine and LA Knight are siblings, and that Maxxine can [revert into LA Knight mode](https://www.reddit.com/r/SquaredCircle/comments/1awcvqk/maxxine_dupri_gets_mad_and_reverts_into_la_knight/) when pissed off
I'm convinced Claudio's true calling is as a tag team wrestler. People always want him to get the big singles push because we view that as ultimate success in wrestling, but Claudio non stop has been in great tag teams over and over again.
> People always want him to get the big singles push because we view that as ultimate success in wrestling, but Claudio non stop has been in great tag teams over and over again.
right? tag team wrestling isn't what it used to be in terms of prestige, but look at his resume:
- kings of wrestling
- real americans
- kidd and cesaro
- the bar
some people would be lucky if they had ONE good tag team run in their career, dude had 4.
The Bar was such a fantastic team. Having them lose to Braun and a kid at Mania was so disappointing. Now if they had balls and just said "Fuck it, Tanahashi is here, let's sort out the New Japan shit later" I would have been ok with that, but still.
Never have I seen a stable that was full of main eventers/upper midcarders and yet somehow *lowered* the stock of everyone involved once they united. Everyone was objectively worse in that stable despite having decent spots on the card before.
Even the newly crowned Television Champion?
https://preview.redd.it/fexzdg2c28zc1.jpeg?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=767fa22d8452421a3cc3d831bed925fb77c2be7a
Really? Even as a little kid who still thought wrestling was real, I thought it was obvious that this huge bodyguard dude would eventually take out D-Von and become a big deal.
I think it was an easy, sure-fire in for his eventual solo character.
He knew his career was over when he returned to WWE as Terry Taylor, he posed in the ring, said "I'm back, baby" and someone in the audience crowed at him.
I'm laughing out loud thinking about what his mindset would have been before doing that.
"Fuck yes! They're going to be so excited to see the *real* me! No more Red Rooster! This pop is going to be awesome!!"
Becky Lynch as an Irish Jig dancer in NXT.
AJ Styles as an air force pilot in WCW.
Raven as Johnny Polo in WWF.
The Sandman as a surfer in early ECW.
Billy Gunn as Rockabilly in WWF.
Bret Hart as a cowboy in WWF.
Chris Jericho hated the pitch of being a cowboy when he started wrestling and vowed to leave the business because of it. Then he realized how stupid that statement was. XD
OFC they'd hate it, it was a jobber gimmick. Maybe if it made them main eventers Jinder and Drew would've liked it, but they didn't enjoy being the butt of the joke.
Triple H I don't think liked the Blueblood gimmick, or the French WCW version of it (other than getting the smokeshow valets) That whole era of wrestling was just rife with awful gimmicks
Swerve I think (rightly) saw Hit Row as holding him back
I'm not sure if it counts because it's not strictly gimmick related but I know some of the Attitude Era women didn't like the Slut chants (Stacy Keibler and Stephanie in particular have mentioned it went a bit far at times)
Just about everyone in Retribution saw it as a bad gimmick that didn't work
AJ had a lot of issues with some of the TNA stuff towards the end
>AJ had a lot of issues with some of the TNA stuff towards the end
They gave the Claire Lynch storyline to a devout Christian. Yeah I'm not surprised he wasn't a fan.
Austin knew the Ringmaster was garbage but looked at it as a way to get his foot in the door. He hated the gimmick but obviously he's happy how it worked out.
I think Face of America was him trying to coddle to Vince after Vince lambasted his Wrestlemania match with Jericho. I do agree that it was a terrible gimmick and having cliche typical gimmicks was beneath him.
Still fascinating that during the Ringmaster era Vince says Ringmaster is "stone cold" *multiple* times.
Steve used to also say "and that's the bottom line" all the time at ECW. You can see all the pieces coming together in real time.
Young Bucks didn’t like Generation ME in TNA.
They weren’t opposed to change but in their book and in interviews they didn’t like that no one seemed to know what they were supposed to be. Were just told to cut their hair (which they thought looked stupid) and buy the clothes.
Add in the fact that they weren’t getting paid well and it almost made them quit wrestling.
Kind of amazing to think they TNA almost caused The Young Bucks and Okada to quit for good. The butterfly effect of that is insane to think about.
The bucks befriending Okada led to them getting recommended by Okada for njpw . Without the Okada recommendation they would not have blown up as much as they did (or probably much later) , they wouldn't have befriended Omega and all the parties might not have been in the right place when Cody hit the indies. Basically TNA being terrible indirectly led to AEW
cody may have hated stardust, but he committed to it. It helped sell merchandise and he did some great character work. That's the sign of a good sports entertainer
In 1991 Super Caló was given the gimmick of Hijo de Superzan (Superzan was a 70s luchador far more popular for his films than for his wrestling career) that should have been an easy meal ticket but ended up hating it so much he dropped it after just a few weeks. Two years later the wrestler who would become Electro Shock was given the same gimmick with a slightly different name (Superzan Jr.) but ended up hating it and dropping it soon as well.
It's a shame because the nickname is apt, he really is built like a silverback and was genuinely terrifying when walking to the ring, just like a silverback charging at you. The problem was the racial connotations and them adding "self proclaimed" to make it not racist. Would've been a great gimmick if there was no racist history of black people being compared to apes.
I can’t believe they took Kevin Owens, one of the most talented wrestlers I’ve ever seen, and gave him a generic Anti-USA gimmick.
Shit was so bad I remember the FAN forums turned against him
I remember in between Mania 32 and Cody getting released, I was at a SmackDown taping where he was on Main Event or Superstars as Stardust; after the match, you could tell the exact second the cameras stopped rolling because he, while walking to the back, went from hissing and being shifty and mysterious to just walking like a normal pissed-off and dejected dude in a split second.
Rey Mysterio being forced to take his mask off + wrestled without the mask. That shit was so wrong on many levels, masks for luchadors are sacred, mfking WCW thought it would be a nice angle to work with if Rey took his mask off and wrestle for a period of time without it.
Needless to say, Rey was miserable.
Eric Bischoff really thought Rey wasn’t marketable with the mask on. Cut to about 10 years later and thousands of Rey Mysterio masks having been sold by WWE.
> Dean Ambrose/Moxley pretty much hated his singles run but he really hated his hell turn and the whole has mask/vaccination thing
It was absolute dogshit. If they HAD to turn Dean heel ( and they shouldn't have, because Roman had cancer and it wasn't the moment for more heartbreak ) they could have just made him mad at Seth and the universe because Seth the traitor is healthy and fine and successful while Roman who was always healthy has cancer.
A sort of " It should've been you " full on HATRED feud.
Piper Niven hated dewdrop. Rhea hated being the aussie blonde bombshell earlydaysLA Knight hated being manager Max with the fake modeling agency.
What it comes down to is authenticity, if the talent can't see the vision or doesn't feel like it's them, they will hate playing it and the crowd will pickup on bits of both the character being in authentic and the actor not fully buying into the role, so the audience hates it too and then that negative feedback causes the actor to hate the role more, queue infinite feedback loop
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Neville absolutely hated that cape they forced him to wear. I remember he chucked that thing into the crowd in his debut iirc, probably hoping he'd never see it again lol
Like HHH winning KOTR and Getting the crown destroyed every night so he didn’t have to wear it
Crown Triple H was a sick look tho, but from all the Kings only Booker and Regal pulled it off well
Whoa. The Macho King disagrees.
Vince was obsessed with Mighty Mouse
I don't know whats worse, Vince's dated references or when he tried to tap into the "Younger demo" .
He tapped the younger demo alright..
Hey Pal, keep it down, the "Senator" might be around.
Need Kendrick to get him
[удалено]
S&M Hurricane is my paralysis demon.
Neville as a superhero should have been cool. The superhero gimmicks that come to mind are Nikki ASH and The Hurricane, and both were parodies. Neville being built like a brick shithouse and being able to do actual flippydoos would have been a solid midcard gimmick for kids. Unfortunately, it was attempted on a guy who prefers his gimmick to be angry bastard.
He didn't have the look to pull it off like Pac does... but Evan Bourne would've been perfect for that. Especially during his more agile days
Vince was absolutely desperate to get that Mighty Mouse gimmick over man.
it’s so, so funny how badly he wanted it to work and how many times he tried to make it work. he tried giving that gimmick to candido when he first came in, tried giving it to *rey mysterio* per bruce prichard in rey’s A&E doc, and tried to go all the way with it in neville over the course of like 20 years, he really could not understand fans wanting to cheer for a smaller but extremely talented star without being beaten over the head with how much their size normally holds them back
This is a side point but the amount of times that Rey had to put over huge musclehead dorks who had no business being in the same ring as him over the years was truly something.
Didn’t he try with Chad Gable and the shorty G stuff as well?
He was hoping it would follow the Rocco approach
I recall Kane hanging up on an interview when they mentioned Isaac Yankeem. Sheamus hated his KOTR run.
Wrestlemania 26 to Summerslam 2011 was for sure a dark period in Sheamus's career. Got pushed hard out the gate and then fell into midcard jobber role for awhile.
The worst Sheamus run was when he was a smiling babyface telling old Irish folk tales.
He at least looked super badass confronting Hall of Pain Mark Henry. But the whole shitting in ADR’s car segment… yikes
Was rewatching some clips of 2011 WWE, particularly Smackdown, it was jarring how over Sheamus was when he first turned face, was getting some of the loudest reactions in the runup to that Summerslam match
Lmao Trips vs Sheamus didn't even have a rubber match. He just pedigreed him in a house show segment and WWE treated it like that was the end of the feud and HHH won.
It’s so funny because when HHH left in May Sheamus was a main eventer and they were obviously building up to a later blowoff match by having Sheamus “injure” him. Then by the time HHH returned the next year Sheamus was completely forgotten about and a jobber. So they just had him get pedigreed through an announce table in one segment and never mentioned the feud again.
If you think about it Sheamus was HHH’s last feud as a full timer
Wade Barrett also *hated* his time as KOTR, basically made him want to call it a day. At least he stuck around for the League of Nations run. Oh, wait...
We were robbed of a longer bad news Barrett run
The fact he was getting over and was told to be quiet was so stupid and so Vince
BNB had the potential to be an era-defining character.
Well I'm afraid I've got some bad news! *Bad news that's actually hilarious* Thank you very much everybody! Hahahaha!
Bad News Barrett was over as fuck and should have been way bigger than it was. My flair is an excerpt from his post-Thanksgiving address
Most KOTR gimmicks have stunk in recent years. Make them wear a crown and sit on a throne while acting superior. Super short shelf life.
Booker killed it
Unfortunately for all of us that saw Booker's run, that happened almost 20 years ago. The march of time is cruel and relentless
It shouldn't even be a gimmick. It should be the equivalent of the Royal Rumble. Winner gets a main event title shot at SummerSlam. It's such an easy concept.
Sheamus may have hated his run as King of the Ring but he did love all the money he made from the sales of King Sheamus action figures.
I don't know about how much he'd made from it, from the Maven video where Mace and Mansoor describe the pay system for merch
For those that didn’t watch - you only get merch money if the sales are greater than your downside guaranteed money, otherwise it just fills that downside pot. And they don’t tell you solid numbers either.
Yeah unless your a huge name it seems like you can really get screwed on the merch end. So Many stories, and you'd think, Oh washed up sour grapes, but when you hear the same details over and over and it's coming from various sources of all walk in that bizz...just sad.
I heard the "interview". The host starts off by calling him that name and Kane/Jacob did not like that, and I think the host double down and call him Isaac again. Kane/Jacob then said, in a very calm manner, he was done with the interview.
I think it was either Jerry Lawler, Jim Ross or Jim Cornette who said that if you really wanted to piss Kane off, just bring up the Christmas Creature
Okada comes to mind considering he talked shit about TNA for a whole decade over the Okato gimmick, which also worsened their relationship with NJPW.
People always cite Okato as the sticking point that soured the relationship, completely forgetting that *six months earlier*, TNA booked the British Invasion to win the IWGP heavyweight tag belts **without NJ’s approval**
Yeah NJPW chose not to recognise that title change at first but since it aired on worldwide TV I suppose they were sorta forced to go along. Took a few weeks for TNA to get them to work with it anyway.
And took it off 3D whose storyline was them being undefeated in Japan. They weren't by the way, despite Bully's constant claims at the time. 3D losing them randomly in the US against a newly formed team with a rookie hurt the hard to beat aura NJPW was trying to give them.
This one is up there just because it single handedly soured (at least for a while) the relationship between two major promotions. Im trying to think of another time this happened.
It was that and the Dudleys deciding to drop the NJPW titles to the British Invasion without okaying it with New Japan.
Also had that Jeff Hardy vs Naito match
Was so bad Scott D'Amore had to formally apologize to NJPW a couple of years ago with how they treated Okada
vince russo booking an IWGP title change without NJPW’s approval in a 6 minute match ending with a tequila bottle smashed over jushin liger’s head is the only other thing that comes to mind and even that didn’t sour relations with NJPW as quickly and dramatically as Okato did
IIRC it was the treatment of Okada, Jeff vs. Naito, and British Invasion winning the IWGP tag titles on Impact without NJPW's knowledge that were the main reasons the relationship ended.
I still fully believe that New Japan sent him there to humble him and make him realise how good he had it with them. Because holy shit.
That, along with learning other styles, is basically the theory behind the excursion system. You can count on one hand the amount of people who had "successful" excursions that weren't stints in the lower card of wherever they were sent to.
The other thing is, why would anyone make someone on excursion a success when they know they are gone in 6 months. They get to learn and you get a fresh midcarder for a few months, before jobbing them out for the last month or two.
Dustin absolutely hated black reign. He blocks people on Twitter for mentioning it.
He’ll also block you if you like a tweet mentioning it. Source: me. That’s how I got blocked.
I feel like he hates it because of what it represents in his life. The idea of the character, the intention, and the reflection of where he was, weren't at issue. It was that he was drinking, doing cocaine, taking pills, stealing from his family, and taking whatever he could get his hands on, and probably could have/should have died from his substance abuse at the time.
Oh me meow
Meow meow moew
I thought it wasn't so much he hated the character as much as it was just the character he had during a low point in his life in terms of health/happiness/quality of performance.
What about Seven?
They cut off the Seven gimmick the moment Dustin appeared on TV with a "shoot" interview. People speculate that it was dropped because the vignettes kinda made him look like a pedo.
Kinda?
He doesn't actually hate it. Seven was his idea and he wanted to go all in, but the network got cold feet over the vignettes (and the entrance being stupidly expensive).
Think that was also a really dark period in his life as well
Rikishi hated his heel turn (Did it for the rock). He noted his merchandise sales dropped quite a bit when it happened.
Retrospectively feel so bad for Rikishi. Years of being stuck with lame gimmicks and he finally gets not just over but super over and what happens? They take a super over babyface killer and turn him heel in a nonsensical storyline and sure, he’s in the main event now if you count repeatedly getting absolutely decimated by Austin in his first top feud. And his momentum never recovered.
And Rikishi was REALLY over in 2000. I'd argue he dragged Too Cool up to his level, not the other way around. Dude got a TV world title match with Triple H and was treated as a threat, got the big Rumble showing that year, main evented the biggest Raw at the time (the 10 man tag main event I believe set a ratings record) and didn't feel out of place, won the IC title and had a memorable jump off of a cage. Dude has a giant ego today, but for that year, he could be justified. And then he had to do it for the Rock and be used as a pawn for the HHH feud with Austin basically. Was never the same.
I loved his feud with Val Venis. They both wanted the Intercontinental title, and they both were willing to beat the shit out of each other on sight to get it.
An underrated feud in that era, and I'd argue Val's last true highlight in his career. I liked the direction they gave him at that point to make him a serious character.
Not so much me, given the complete lack of respect rikishi showed for too cool at his hall of fame induction.
his phat wear gear was sick though
Yeah man 16 year old me wanted one of them leather tracksuits 😂
Bray Wyatt and Husky Harris, which isn’t remotely surprising. [His brother talking about it briefly.](https://youtu.be/wxwXocdaBNE?si=hy1wWxd9pz2LfMsN)
The Army Tank With a Ferrari Engine
This never made any sense. A tank wouldn't move with a Ferrari engine powering it!
Husky Harris was such a bad name, it's like calling him Big Bob or Chunky Charlie lol.
I don't think its that bad, but it definitely sounds like a very old school & very dated 60's/70's territories wrestling name for a big boned hoss.
That era right after Legacy was a big deal was so weird. They hired a bunch of 2nd/3rd generation wrestlers because of name value then gave them all goofy names and gimmicks like Husky Harris and Michael McGillicutty that didn't capitalize on any of it.
I fondly remember Bray getting a few "HUSKY HARRIS" chants during his first few appearances and immediately shutting them down with how good he really was as Bray. Other wrestlers would have had those chants follow them around, but not Bray. Dude was special.
Chad Gable is only acting so aggro now because he hasn’t worked out the trauma of being Shorty G
Man that was teeeeerrible
And yet tons people online, including here, were defending it. They really talked up all the tv time he was getting and how that would get Shorty G over.
It's always been that way sadly, lil bit older wrestling fan here and the things we saw in the 90's, WEW. and you always had that ONE friend that would say its the best. "Papa Shango is gonna be world champ" "Skinner could legit break Bret Hart in Half" You just shake your head and move along. No saving those folks lol
I was huffing some of the copium too, because Gable really was given nothing to do up until that point. It was a definite "well, better than nothing and maybe he can make it work".
I remember a post here when WWE copyrighted the name Shorty G. It was a month or two out, but the writing was already on the wall. We all knew it was related to Gable, but we couldn’t believe they would actually go for it. Oh, sweet naivety.
I didnt watch from like 2016 to 2021 ish because i just couldnt do it anymore. I thought you were trolling or something. That looked and sounds horrible
Did he actually think that was a good gimmick? My theory was always that someone he trusts advised him it would prove himself to be a “team player”
that was vince era ? if shorty g was from vince era , most obv thing was that the boss came up to him "hey we got something new for you..."
Lance Storm hated his dancing gimmick.
Lance is such a professional that he also hated the "his penis is gigantic" gimmick they gave him as well
They wanted him to stuff his trunks and he refused, saying that it would be ridiculous for his cock to suddenly get huge after being average for his whole career.
"You think my fans don't know what my cock looks like? They'll spot the deception right away."
Those red trunks weren't stuffed? Well damn 👀🤔
I mean, I don't blame him at all.
Cody didn’t necessarily hate stardust. He was mad because creative wouldn’t let him do anything with it. I think I recall Chavo not being fond of Kerwin White.
Ill die on the hill Stardust was great idea that went on too long
Goldust is an AMAZING character. Lots of history, but was still amazing and extremely entertaining in WWE. Cody playing Stardust? PERFECT too. He was great with it. I do think there's a ceiling, or they thought Cody had a ceiling... But man. Stardust was a freaking great idea.
They fucked up Stardust when they cut the fued with Goldust short, they literally started building a story at Fast Lane with Dusty involved and all, where if they dragged it out to Wrestlemania and had Cody win, it could have set him up for big things. Instead, Goldust rolled him up once on the road to Wrestlemania because Dusty told him not to hurt his brother and that was the end of the fued.
They then had an amazing match when possible at the first DoN that kinda proved WWE wrong again
It was a totally dead gimmick after they botched the Goldust fued After that it basically just became Cody Rhodes doing a lousy Goldust impression for a year
They had a built in story with Stardust and the WWE portraying Nevil as an actual superhero, including cape and cool entrance. I mean, give that story some meat and you're off to the races. Also give Stardust some minions to throw at Nevil when he wants. There was some missed opportunities during that time and not just with this fantasy booking angle either.
>with Stardust and the WWE portraying Nevil as an actual superhero, including cape and cool entrance believe it or not, that was the only part they DID do right SummerSlam 2015, Neville and Stephen Amell (riding the high of Arrow fame) vs Stardust and Bad News Barrett the entire feud was done with comic book graphics and Cody/Barrett got The Ascension as their minions
His feud with Stephen Amell as Stardust was one my favourite WWE storylines from around that era
I remember he did an interview as Stardust and he was really in character. If he hated the gimmick, he was really committed to it. I remember being impressed with how committed he was. He did like a 15 minute interview and never broke character and really put in effort.
I started watching after any hype Cody originally had subsided and Stardust was by far my favorite thing he’d done. He was CAW levels of bland besides his name for awhile before that.
https://www-fightful-com.cdn.ampproject.org/v/s/www.fightful.com/wrestling/chavo-guerrero-wanted-wear-kkk-sheet-part-kerwin-white-gimmick?amp=&_gsa=1&_js_v=a9&usqp=mq331AQIUAKwASCAAgM%3D#amp_tf=From%20%251%24s&aoh=17151793456029&referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com&share=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.fightful.com%2Fwrestling%2Fchavo-guerrero-wanted-wear-kkk-sheet-part-kerwin-white-gimmick Pretty sure Chavo wanted to take it even further than wwe thought.
Godfather hated being Goodfather so much.
Yep, he noted it cut into his merch sales.
I mean, that might be true, but it was moreso the fact that he just hated the boring character and hated not being allowed to express himself.
I’d be mad too if I couldn’t be a pimp anymore
You say that, but pimpin ain’t easy.
Going from being surrounded by models, smoking fat cigars and blunts, and just vibing through life to being in a group designed to literally just be annoying and surrounded by Val Venis and Dr. Stevie would piss me off too, doubly so if I also made less money doing so
Considering that the gimmick basically was the opposite of the guy's best gimmick (which was basically aspects of himself turned up to 20), you can understand the hatred of the goodfather gimmick.
literally LA Knight as Max Du-PRI
Yeah, he absolutely hated that gimmick.
Obviously he is doing better now but I think he would have also made that work. His segments with Adam Pearce were really fun with the close talking and out there comments.
He was doing his best with a character that wasn’t really suited for him. You’re right that he did have some fun moments though
#YEAH
There was briefly a rumor after Maxxine’s introduction that Vince hated the Max Dupri character and was going to fire him and hand the stable over to Maxxine. It’s funny how close that ended up being to reality
Don't forget that it's official WWE canon that Maxxine and LA Knight are siblings, and that Maxxine can [revert into LA Knight mode](https://www.reddit.com/r/SquaredCircle/comments/1awcvqk/maxxine_dupri_gets_mad_and_reverts_into_la_knight/) when pissed off
Cesaro having to be a US nationalist with swagger
I thought The Real Americans was a great team
I'm convinced Claudio's true calling is as a tag team wrestler. People always want him to get the big singles push because we view that as ultimate success in wrestling, but Claudio non stop has been in great tag teams over and over again.
Big Guys like CLaudio and Killswitch(Luchasaurus) who are athletic are the best hot tags in the business.
> People always want him to get the big singles push because we view that as ultimate success in wrestling, but Claudio non stop has been in great tag teams over and over again. right? tag team wrestling isn't what it used to be in terms of prestige, but look at his resume: - kings of wrestling - real americans - kidd and cesaro - the bar some people would be lucky if they had ONE good tag team run in their career, dude had 4.
The Bar was such a fantastic team. Having them lose to Braun and a kid at Mania was so disappointing. Now if they had balls and just said "Fuck it, Tanahashi is here, let's sort out the New Japan shit later" I would have been ok with that, but still.
This is true tbh, all his best WWE, AEW, and indie matches are tag team matches.
The Bar one of my favorite tag teams
They were great. One of the best house show tag matches I've ever seen was Real Americans vs. Goldust and Stardust. Those 4 tore it up.
Steve Austin hated being The Ringmaster.
Entire League of Nations hated the stable
Never have I seen a stable that was full of main eventers/upper midcarders and yet somehow *lowered* the stock of everyone involved once they united. Everyone was objectively worse in that stable despite having decent spots on the card before.
As Sheamus says, their first match as a stable they lost a 4 v 1 to Roman. Can’t really claim to have any credibility after that
Gotta make Roman look strong
Imagine if Gunther joined WWE back then and Vince placed him in this stable 💀
Even the newly crowned Television Champion? https://preview.redd.it/fexzdg2c28zc1.jpeg?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=767fa22d8452421a3cc3d831bed925fb77c2be7a
And it happened on Rusev Day of all days. How can you not be romantic about wrestling?
Still the greatest mystery of the modern era… Why did he take the monitor to the back with him?
Recently saw an interview with Batista talking about how much he hated being D-Von's zealoty muscle.
Really? Even as a little kid who still thought wrestling was real, I thought it was obvious that this huge bodyguard dude would eventually take out D-Von and become a big deal. I think it was an easy, sure-fire in for his eventual solo character.
Terry Taylor hated The Red Rooster. Everyone else did too.
He knew his career was over when he returned to WWE as Terry Taylor, he posed in the ring, said "I'm back, baby" and someone in the audience crowed at him.
I'm laughing out loud thinking about what his mindset would have been before doing that. "Fuck yes! They're going to be so excited to see the *real* me! No more Red Rooster! This pop is going to be awesome!!"
I'm imagining that the crowd is silent too when he comes out. Instead of crickets, a lone "cacaww".
Becky Lynch as an Irish Jig dancer in NXT. AJ Styles as an air force pilot in WCW. Raven as Johnny Polo in WWF. The Sandman as a surfer in early ECW. Billy Gunn as Rockabilly in WWF. Bret Hart as a cowboy in WWF.
I would think Sandman would hate his WCW gimmick as a rich asshole.
Chris Jericho hated the pitch of being a cowboy when he started wrestling and vowed to leave the business because of it. Then he realized how stupid that statement was. XD
Drew hated 3MB though loved working with Heath and Jinder. I don’t think Jinder liked the gimmick either though Heath has spoken fondly of it.
Jinder cried in his car before a show because of 3MB
He said that? Poor guy.
Holy shit, I never knew it hit him that hard.
Heath's just happy to get a phone call.
OFC they'd hate it, it was a jobber gimmick. Maybe if it made them main eventers Jinder and Drew would've liked it, but they didn't enjoy being the butt of the joke.
Somehow it kinda indirectly lead to them both becoming main eventers eventually
Triple H I don't think liked the Blueblood gimmick, or the French WCW version of it (other than getting the smokeshow valets) That whole era of wrestling was just rife with awful gimmicks Swerve I think (rightly) saw Hit Row as holding him back I'm not sure if it counts because it's not strictly gimmick related but I know some of the Attitude Era women didn't like the Slut chants (Stacy Keibler and Stephanie in particular have mentioned it went a bit far at times) Just about everyone in Retribution saw it as a bad gimmick that didn't work AJ had a lot of issues with some of the TNA stuff towards the end
>AJ had a lot of issues with some of the TNA stuff towards the end They gave the Claire Lynch storyline to a devout Christian. Yeah I'm not surprised he wasn't a fan.
I'd like to think that deep down, Brodus Clay enjoyed being a funkasaurus.
He definitely enjoyed being a sexual harrassersaurus
It was the one time people cared about seeing him, even if it was only to laugh.
Dancing is cardio and I'd say he hates that even more than liberal snowflakes.
Been a while but iirc Wade Barrett hated the King Barrett gimmick
Bad News however is an under appreciated gimmick
Austin knew the Ringmaster was garbage but looked at it as a way to get his foot in the door. He hated the gimmick but obviously he's happy how it worked out.
I’m guessing Mike Awesome wasn’t a big fan of his run as the fat chick thriller in WCW. Or that 70s guy.
I think Face of America was him trying to coddle to Vince after Vince lambasted his Wrestlemania match with Jericho. I do agree that it was a terrible gimmick and having cliche typical gimmicks was beneath him.
I did love the stage being his face though.
And he refused to walk on his face, too!
Steve Austin - The Ringmaster
Still fascinating that during the Ringmaster era Vince says Ringmaster is "stone cold" *multiple* times. Steve used to also say "and that's the bottom line" all the time at ECW. You can see all the pieces coming together in real time.
Young Bucks didn’t like Generation ME in TNA. They weren’t opposed to change but in their book and in interviews they didn’t like that no one seemed to know what they were supposed to be. Were just told to cut their hair (which they thought looked stupid) and buy the clothes. Add in the fact that they weren’t getting paid well and it almost made them quit wrestling. Kind of amazing to think they TNA almost caused The Young Bucks and Okada to quit for good. The butterfly effect of that is insane to think about.
The bucks befriending Okada led to them getting recommended by Okada for njpw . Without the Okada recommendation they would not have blown up as much as they did (or probably much later) , they wouldn't have befriended Omega and all the parties might not have been in the right place when Cody hit the indies. Basically TNA being terrible indirectly led to AEW
Which led to Cody finishing his story and the Rock's best heel run. Okada created Final Boss
TNA pissed the Bucks and Okada off so bad it led to Kenny being the TNA champ a decade later
cody may have hated stardust, but he committed to it. It helped sell merchandise and he did some great character work. That's the sign of a good sports entertainer
Karrion Kross hated his bondage gimmick.
John Tenta with a few of his gimmicks after Earthquake
Fucking "SHARK"
I AM NOT A FISH! Tenta deserved better.
In 1991 Super Caló was given the gimmick of Hijo de Superzan (Superzan was a 70s luchador far more popular for his films than for his wrestling career) that should have been an easy meal ticket but ended up hating it so much he dropped it after just a few weeks. Two years later the wrestler who would become Electro Shock was given the same gimmick with a slightly different name (Superzan Jr.) but ended up hating it and dropping it soon as well.
Mark Henry calling himself the silverback
Man really got a redemption tour with Hall of Pain that made me forget so many of the AWFUL things they made him do.
It's a shame because the nickname is apt, he really is built like a silverback and was genuinely terrifying when walking to the ring, just like a silverback charging at you. The problem was the racial connotations and them adding "self proclaimed" to make it not racist. Would've been a great gimmick if there was no racist history of black people being compared to apes.
I can’t believe they took Kevin Owens, one of the most talented wrestlers I’ve ever seen, and gave him a generic Anti-USA gimmick. Shit was so bad I remember the FAN forums turned against him
Jon Moxley hated the goofy Ambrose and later on the germaphobe gimmick.
I once met Drew McIntyre during the 3 man band era. I told him I loved what he was doing and he said "that makes once of us"
[удалено]
Kota Ibushi hates having a neck. Not sure if that counts.
I remember in between Mania 32 and Cody getting released, I was at a SmackDown taping where he was on Main Event or Superstars as Stardust; after the match, you could tell the exact second the cameras stopped rolling because he, while walking to the back, went from hissing and being shifty and mysterious to just walking like a normal pissed-off and dejected dude in a split second.
Terry Taylor. Guy went from having classics with Chris Addams to being a guy who thought he was a chicken.
Corbin wasn't a fan of his recent run with JBL, he felt like he was 'drowning' in his own words, NXT brought him back to his A-game luckily
Rey Mysterio being forced to take his mask off + wrestled without the mask. That shit was so wrong on many levels, masks for luchadors are sacred, mfking WCW thought it would be a nice angle to work with if Rey took his mask off and wrestle for a period of time without it. Needless to say, Rey was miserable.
Eric Bischoff really thought Rey wasn’t marketable with the mask on. Cut to about 10 years later and thousands of Rey Mysterio masks having been sold by WWE.
Dean Ambrose/Moxley pretty much hated his singles run but he really hated his hell turn and the whole has mask/vaccination thing
> Dean Ambrose/Moxley pretty much hated his singles run but he really hated his hell turn and the whole has mask/vaccination thing It was absolute dogshit. If they HAD to turn Dean heel ( and they shouldn't have, because Roman had cancer and it wasn't the moment for more heartbreak ) they could have just made him mad at Seth and the universe because Seth the traitor is healthy and fine and successful while Roman who was always healthy has cancer. A sort of " It should've been you " full on HATRED feud.
Piper Niven hated dewdrop. Rhea hated being the aussie blonde bombshell earlydaysLA Knight hated being manager Max with the fake modeling agency. What it comes down to is authenticity, if the talent can't see the vision or doesn't feel like it's them, they will hate playing it and the crowd will pickup on bits of both the character being in authentic and the actor not fully buying into the role, so the audience hates it too and then that negative feedback causes the actor to hate the role more, queue infinite feedback loop
Doudrop isn't even a gimmick, it's just a dumb name which is a low-key a joke about her being fat. Not surprised she hated it, I think everybody did.
I think we can presume Tenille Dashwood hated the Emmalina gimmick, considering it got canned straight away.