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Shane Helms perfected the comedy gimmick when playing The Hurricane superhero for many years. WWE signed Helms as one of the more promising talents from WCW when purchasing the competition in 2001. The new gimmick started from a funny comment in a promo with Steve Austin and ended up becoming the calling card of Helm’s career.
WWE pushed The Hurricane as a fun act designed to make the audience laugh and have a good time at the show. The audience connected with Hurricane and proved that character work is usually more important than in-ring work in terms of getting over. Helms still gets mileage out of the gimmick today as a nostalgia act. The Hurricane should be discussed more as the most successful comedy gimmick in WWE history.
Shane Helms Struck Gold With This Gimmick
The best wrestling gimmicks sometimes come out of good timing and sheer luck. Steve Austin making a comment about Helms having a Green Lantern tattoo and Helms talking about his love of superheroes inspired the WWE creative team to take a big leap with his character.
The Hurricane started off as a heel and an intentionally comedic goof to get made fun of. Helms would deny any association between him and The Hurricane even though fans were all in on the joke of it being him. However, the cheers started to come from Hurricane being such a fun act designed to keep the audience laughing, which becomes hard to hate.
WWE found ideas from other superhero characters, like Helms pretending to be a reporter backstage before flying out of the screen to morph into The Hurricane inspired by Superman. Molly Holly even joined him to become his official sidekick as another fun element to the act. Helms became one of the first few breakout stars for WWE to come from WCW in the Invasion storyline.
The Hurricane Got Over Like Shane Helms Never Did
WWE kept The Hurricane around for about four years as a character due to how strongly he got over. Shane Helms loved getting to channel a new side rather than just having good matches like the final few months of his WCW run. The Hurricane turning face ended up leading to the peak of his career. WWE even had a small feud of Hurricane scoring an upset over The Rock after their hilarious backstage segments during Rock’s time as a Hollywood heel.
Hurricane continued to find more success in various forms from becoming the Cruiserweight Champion to winning the WWE Tag Team Championship with multiple partners. Kane and Hurricane formed a fun short-term heel tag team before WWE wanted to push Kane further on his own again. Rosey become the longer-term partner of Hurricane as the superhero in training.
Fans always enjoyed the face run of Hurricane, and he revealed the comedy gimmick helped him become a top merchandise seller for a short time due to kids loving his mask. The final run for Hurricane’s peak era saw him and Rosey winning tag gold with Stacy Keibler at their side. WWE eventually ended the magical run when wanting to push Helms as a heel without the Hurricane persona.
The Hurricane Made Shane Helms A Legend
Wrestling fans cheering for a character many years after their prime and the pop never getting weak may be the ultimate sign of success for a career. Shane Helms playing The Hurricane again years later on the ECW brand saw him getting among the more consistent cheers on a smaller show. WWE eventually released Helms after feeling he’d reach the end of the road as a noteworthy contributor.
Helms used the Hurricane gimmick a few times on the independent circuit and even in AEW as part of the Matt Hardy vs Sammy Guevara cinematic match. This character became one with Helms in the sense that the fans will always remember him for it. WWE bringing Helms back for a backstage role and a surprise appearance in the 2018 Royal Rumble match was met with overwhelming praise.
The current role of Helms is producing matches backstage in WWE, but the occasional return in the Rumble or 24/7 Title segments have shown just how much fans loved Hurricane. Few gimmicks get that much of an ovation when coming back, let alone on multiple occasions. Helms proved that funny can draw money by achieving the greatest success of his career by making the audience laugh. The Hurricane remains a tremendous WWE gimmick that was the best ever from the comedy side of wrestling.