Pro wrestling is all about portraying a gimmick in the most entertaining and compelling way possible. However, not every wrestler is able to find the gimmick that sticks with them right away, and they are subjected to portraying multiple gimmicks before they find the one that sticks like Stone Cold Steve Austin or sometimes a wrestler finds that they are able to portray multiple gimmicks and make them entertaining, like Mick Foley.
Many times, when a wrestler leaves a promotion, they are forced to change characters, or sometimes they may even have to change with the times to keep it refreshing. These are the current wrestlers that have played some of the most gimmicks throughout their careers in all of wrestling.
10 Dustin Rhodes
Dustin Rhodes, more famously known as Goldust, has undergone some of the most gimmick changes in professional wrestling. He started in WCW as a young and talented wrestler with a legacy name, with his father being legendary wrestler Dusty Rhodes. However, it would be in WWE where he made his name more widely recognizable, as the character Goldust.
Between Goldust and the character Dustin is in AEW now, he had a second run in WCW where he played Seven, a run in TNA where he was Black Reign, and many variations of the Goldust character with different quirks in the WWE.
9 Cody Rhodes
When it comes to the Rhodes family, they certainly know how to reinvent their characters and create new ideas for themselves. Cody, like his brother Dustin, has had many iterations of his character in wrestling. Rhodes started off similarly to Dustin, as Dusty's son. However, Cody quickly established a name of his own when he was a part of the heel stable, The Legacy. Cody went on to create Dashing Cody Rhodes and then used an injury to create Undashing Cody Rhodes. Fans have seen him create a comic book-like character in Stardust, as well as a Homelander-like character now in AEW, where the fans boo him, as he continuously believes he is the good guy.
8 Matt Cardona
Zack Ryder, or now known as Matt Cardona, has always been able to get himself over. Ryder started out in the WWE with Curt Hawkins as the Edge Heads, a team of long blonde-haired wrestlers that resembled Edge. Then he became a Jersey Shore-like character known as Zack Ryder before Jersey Shore ever premiered. It was when he was able to turn his Zack Ryder gimmick into a beloved wrestling fan on the Internet that fans really began connecting with Ryder.
Ryder stayed beloved by fans for many years with this gimmick, but when he left the WWE, he has made quite a name for himself as Matt Cardona, largely gaining notoriety as a Death Match wrestler in GCW.
7 Matt Hardy
Matt Hardy might be the greatest example of a gimmick changer in all of professional wrestling. Hardy could have coasted just being one-half of the Hardy Boyz. However, he has continuously reinvented himself to make his character constantly entertaining and unique. After the break-up of the Hardy Boyz, Matt started his "Version One" gimmick, dominating the Cruiserweight division. In Ring Of Honor, he was Big Money Matt, finding a way to keep thriving as a heel. After nearly 25 years in the business, Hardy came up with possibly his greatest gimmick, Broken Matt Hardy. In AEW, he is the leader of the Hardy Family Office and is the best example of how to reinvent yourself and be willing to change.
6 Chris Jericho
While Chris Jericho for most of his career has been known as Chris Jericho, the character has gone through many different gimmicks. In WCW, he was a shining light, and his "Jericholic" gimmick was extremely entertaining.
Debuting as his Y2J character made him a success in WWE, but Jericho was known to leave the company to tour with his band Fozzy and come back with a different, equally entertaining gimmick. Jericho would come back as a "savior" as well as "The List of Jericho" gimmick that would become one of his most popular of all time before joining AEW as the leader of the Inner Circle.
5 Doc Gallows
Doc Gallows has had a vast number of gimmicks across so many different promotions. In terms of the number of gimmicks for an active wrestler, Gallows may have the most. Gallows portfolio goes from an Imposter Kane that feuded with the Big Red Machine to an unresponsive character until the bell rung named Festus, to part of the Straight Edge Society as Luke Gallows. However, he now has cemented himself as one of the most decorated tag team wrestlers as Doc Gallows. Gallows and Anderson have won tag titles with his partner Karl Anderson in WWE, NJPW, TNA.
4 Edge
With a wrestler that has been in the business as long as Edge has, it's no wonder that he has some of the most gimmick changes. Edge wasn't always the "Rated R Superstar" he iconically became known as nor was Edge always the babyface that the WWE fans know him as now.
Edge started out in the WWE as a longer character before teaming with Christian, originally as a vampire group with Gangrel, before finding their footing and becoming a comedic and still yet serious tag team that revolutionized tag team wrestling. Edge would go on to become arguably the biggest heel of the 2000s, with his gimmick as an ultimate opportunist willing to do anything to keep or win the world heavyweight championship.
3 Bray Wyatt
Not much is known at the moment if or when Bray Wyatt will come back to wrestling after his release from the WWE earlier this year. Bray Wyatt has literally portrayed multiple characters at the same time, as he would switch from being his Bray Wyatt happy self to a destructive and demonic-like character known as The Fiend. However, as much of a creative genius Wyatt is, he hasn't always had great gimmicks as he debuted in WWE as Husky Harris, a generic wrestler in the infancy of WWE NXT when it was still much more of a game show.
2 Eric Young
Eric Young has gone through numerous amount of gimmicks, primarily during his time in TNA. Young's first real gimmick in TNA was being part of Team Canada and being extremely paranoid, being afraid of the pyrotechnics and any wrestler showing any form of violence. Young went from a paranoid jobber to a superhero named "Super Eric" to a character with brain injuries who teamed with Orlando Jordan and was mentored by Brian Kendrick. This was all before making his character turn a complete 180 degrees, becoming TNA World Champion in a moment that Impact fans rejoiced. Young would later become the leader of Sanity in WWE for a brief period before going back to Impact Wrestling.
1 Baron Corbin
Baron Corbin is the wrestler with the shortest career on this list. Corbin has only wrestled for the WWE, being signed shortly after his NFL career ended. However, Corbin has seen his character change many times. NXT fans will know Baron Corbin as "The Lonewolf" gimmick of a giant with a bad temper, but on the main roster is where his gimmick has shifted quite a bit. Corbin was the authority figure on Monday Night RAW known as "Constable Corbin."
However, unlike most authority figures, Corbin wrestled throughout his term in power. When Corbin won the King of the Ring, he naturally developed a king gimmick as most KOTR winners do, and recently, his gimmick was a character who blew all of their money and was broke. However, in storyline, he won big in Las Vegas and is portraying the "Happy Corbin" gimmick.