5 Worst Gimmick Changes in WWE History

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Undertaker
Undertaker

“If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”

A wise proverb indeed and one that can run all too true in the world of professional wrestling. If a gimmick isn’t working, change it. But for the ones that are still working well, there’s not much need for overhaul, especially ones executed as poorly as the five below.

Whether it was offensive, uninspired or just really lame, these gimmicks definitely didn’t have the desired effect that was expected. Unfortunately, changing a good gimmick to a bad one happens far more often than it should.

Ground rules: They’ve must have worked for a McMahon before, during and after the gimmick change. Secondly, their previous character must have been at least decent, and the change wasn’t necessary. Also, face/heel turns don’t count – so no Sgt Slaughter turning on the good ol’ US of A.

 

5. Cody Rhodes to Stardust

Gold & Stardust

For some reason, WWE decided to let a very marketable prospect in Cody Rhodes languish as a mid-carder in sub-par gimmicks. With his father being the iconic Dusty Rhodes and brother being the legend that is Goldust, you’d think it would be easy. He did his best with what was given, even having a good run with his ‘Dashing’ gimmick where he berated the audience while saying how perfect he was. He even got an injury over following a broken nose from the knee of Rey Mysterio, with his protective face mask used as a weapon.

The worst came when he was lumbered with the Stardust gimmick, a pale imitation of his brother, Goldust, which was billed from ‘The Fifth Dimension’. You’d think a being from another dimension would be nigh on unbeatable, which was obviously not the case as he slipped further down the card after a short run with the tag belts alongside Goldust. The cheap gimmick continued far longer than it should have and, seemingly, resulted in Cody’s departure from WWE.

After a far more successful indie run, Cody has achieved the expectations that had been brought by the family name. A further stellar run in NJPW saw ‘The son of, the son of a plumber’ become a valued member of the Bullet Club.

Now a founding member of AEW alongside Bullet Club alumni Kenny Omega and the Young Bucks, he has become a big name in the wrestling world and far away from the awful Stardust gimmick. It does boggle the mind how a talent such as Cody Rhodes can be so easily overlooked, but we can be thankful that he was, or we wouldn’t have AEW on TNT to look forward to this coming October.

 

4. Chavo Guerrero to Kerwin White

Never the favoured of the Guerrero family in the fan’s eyes, that would be his uncle Eddie, Chavo at least had his run at the top of the WWE with Los Guerreros; making up a valuable, and underrated, part of the ‘SmackDown Six’. The former WCW man even took up Eddie’s ‘Lie, Cheat and Steal’ shtick for their tag team exploits.

This all changed in 2005, with the seemingly flimsy reasoning of being beaten by the terribly named ‘Mexicools’, when Chavo denounced his heritage and became Kerwin White: The middle-class, white, conservative who would drive to the ring in a golf cart. The incredibly offensive gimmick laid the path for “jokes” about minorities being inferior; awful. I’ll remind you that this was 2005 and not the 80’s.

On the bright side (sort of), it gave the rookie Nick Nemeth his first WWE appearance, who’d later go on to be the man we all know and tolerate, Dolph Ziggler. I love you really, Dolph, that Goldberg match at SummerSlam 2019 was wonderful.

 

3. Jim Neidhart to Who

Jim Neidhart

Take one of the best tag team wrestlers of all-time, with one of the most distinctive personalities, and completely overhaul their character for the sake of a cheap pun.

“Who is in the ring.”

“I don’t know, who is in the ring?”

“Who.”

Comedy gold.

This is the standard of commentary we were treated to during the masked Jim Neidhart’s short lived run as the character in 1996. Thankfully, we were relieved of the horrendous gimmick in April 1997, as ‘The Anvil’ reunited with Bret ‘The Hitman’ Hart and reformed The Hart Foundation. Yes, he did have a short break from the WWF, but it was only a few months so I’m not counting it.

 

2. One Man Gang to Akeem the African Dream

Once a mainstay monster heel of the late 80s, George Gray as One Man Gang battered jobbers in squash matches on his quick route to the main event. OMG became bait for the mega babyfaces of the day to vanquish in big-money matches. A great position on the card and a memorable character for the time still didn’t save him from the McMahon treatment.

I’ll stress this: the American, Caucasian, Louisiana native was billed from ‘The Deepest Darkest Parts of Africa’ as Akeem ‘The African Dream’. 80s in a nutshell.

The incredibly offensive gimmick saw Gray in a “tribal” costume, while speaking in a ludicrously offensive “black accent” and dancing while a “voodoo ritual” took place. Viewers of the time may look back at this gimmick with nostalgia which muted the shock of it, but when looking back at it today, you wonder: How was this considered a good idea?

 

1. The Deadman to Biker ‘Taker

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9HcolDGhs-M

I know some of you look back fondly over Biker ‘Taker’s run, partially due to it being around the time that a lot of you were getting into wrestling, myself included. But when you look back at it, it wasn’t great. Going from an immortal zombie to someone who rides a motorbike is a bit of a downgrade. It didn’t help that it started to look like Mark Calaway didn’t really care anymore: his mic skills were poor, the matches were lazily worked, it ruined the Deadman’s aura and it shattered kayfabe into a million pieces.

After a brief run as Big Evil – which was basically a moodier version of the American Bad Ass – brought some vague legitimacy to the character, Big Evil/American Bad Ass was buried alive, again, and went away for a few months. A March 2004 return saw the resurrection of ‘The Deadman’, the newly titled ‘Phenom’ giving way to the best run of The Undertaker’s career. It’s just a shame the whole biker phase had to happen.

So, there we have it, the five worst gimmick changes in WWE history. There’s been plenty of bad attempts at gimmick changes over WWE’s storied past, so let me know the ones I’ve certainly missed in the comments below.

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