For those Zoomers and younger Millennials out there who may not remember, it can't be overstated that the 1980s and 1990s were a wild time in professional wrestling. The advent of cable television and the national expansion of regional promotions helped expose the sport to a whole new audience. In large part due to Vince McMahon's marketing, wrestling's fanbase looked a lot different than it had in the 1970s and prior.

RELATED: 10 Things From WCW That Have Surprisingly Aged Well

With the industry booming, bookers found that interesting, original gimmicks were becoming increasingly more scarce. WCW was no exception, and especially as the promotion suffered lean years on both ends of its hot run in the late '90s, its various creative minds were seemingly throwing ideas at the wall, hoping that some might stick. For every WCW gimmick and angle that remains fondly remembered (the original nWo, for example), there are myriad others that either aged poorly or were duds right from the start.

10 Hulk Hogan As A Babyface

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When Eric Bischoff signed Hulk Hogan in 1994, it was an industry-altering seismic shift in the North American wrestling landscape. Hogan had been the biggest star in the world for the better part of a decade and, although the last couple years of his WWE run had become stale, he was still head-and-shoulders above any babyface option either company had.

With that said, Bischoff and WCW made a miscalculation that it took them two years to understand: WCW fans and WWE fans were not a single, overlapping circle. Loyal NWA/WCW devotees, many of whom were second- or third-generation southerners whose fandom originated during a different era, didn't care for Hogan's cartoonish style. Crowds' allegiances were split in their support between Hogan and Ric Flair during Hogan's first few matches with the company, and after a long feud with the Dungeon of Doom, the 'Hulkster's famous heel turn at Bash at the Beach 1996 couldn't have come sooner.

9 Erik Watts - Most Unlikable Babyface Ever

Erik Watts

Simply being the child of a successful wrestler or another figure in the industry isn't much of a gimmick alone. However, that hasn't stopped many second-generation wrestlers from apparently thinking all they need to get over is flash a smile and thumbs-up and have a recognizable last name.

RELATED: 10 WCW Wrestlers Who Debuted With A Terrible Gimmick

Whether this is the wrestler's or their companies' respective creative teams' fault is a case-by-case determination, but folks like Erik Watts - son of legendary wrestler and Mid-South/UWF owner 'Cowboy' Bill Watts - suffered mightily for it. To be fair, 'Watts' name mattered to southern fans of the era, but Erik was green as grass and had zero personality to match. Despite a strong push that included the youngster's involvement with several top names like Arn Anderson, fans frankly didn't care. Sadly, Watts never was able to shake off the stench from his first national run.

8 Berlyn - The Same Evil German Trope For A New Generation

Alex Wright as Berlyn in WCW

For several generations following World War II, German- and Japanese- Americans suffered from residual negative sentiment due to their ancestry. While this has proved horrifically tragic for scores of innocent folks who've been forced to navigate various levels of bigotry throughout their lives, to wrestling bookers, fans' preconditioned hatred has been a veritable well of gimmicks and character attributes.

By the late '90s, however, it would stand to reason that the 'cold-yet-efficient German' trope's shelf-life was nearing its end. That didn't stop bookers from repackaging 'Das Wunderkind' Alex Wright, a young mid-card cruiserweight who'd been with the company for several years, into Berlyn, a 'modern' take on leftover fascist stereotypes. Even his bodyguard - Jerry 'The Wall' Tuite - was just a corny pun come to life, and after a few forgettable months, the gimmick was abandoned as Wright re-formed his just-as-silly (but at least fun) team with Disco Inferno.

7 Johnny B. Badd - Jewish Guy Playing A Gay Black Guy

Marc Mero as Johnny B. Badd in WCW

When a very young Marc Mero joined WCW in 1991, Dusty Rhodes immediately noticed that the former New York State Golden Gloves boxing champion (and legitimate tough guy) bore a striking resemblance to early 1950's rock and roll pioneer Little Richard. Richard was as famous for his flamboyant ways as he was his music, and as wrestling gimmicks went, his schtick was far from the worst source of material.

While the character probably had a shelf-life - it's hard to imagine Badd as he was in, say, 1994, ever being World Champion - it worked well enough to lead to a productive run as a popular mid-carder. What didn't age well about the gimmick is something that in the mid-'90s wasn't a big deal at all but today would be considered unacceptable: Little Richard was a gay Black man, while Marc Mero is decidedly neither. Whether or not this was genuinely offensive or just a little tone-deaf is up for debate; either way, it's hard to envision a scenario in 2021 where creative didn't decide that taking the chance wouldn't be worth the potential backlash.

6 Southern Boys - Confederate Flag Trunks

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When - in the wake of widespread June 2020 Black Lives Matter protests - NASCAR banned the display of Confederate Flags at its races, it was considered an overdue step in ridding the sport of leftover symbols of the American Civil War and subsequent segregationist laws and policies in southern states.

Since WCW was at heart a southern company, the aforementioned flag was not only a prominent symbol among its fans, but several of its performers made it a central part of their gimmicks. Perhaps the foremost example of this was the Southern Boys tag team of Tracy Smothers and Steve Armstrong, who also competed in front of friendly crowds in Florida and Tennessee's USWA. Whether interpreted as an innocuous symbol of heritage or something much more nefarious, either way, if Smothers and Armstrong attempted to resume the same gimmick today, they'd at minimum be sent for an immediate wardrobe change.

5 P.N. News - No Baby, No Baby, No

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In the early '90s, rap music was still very new to most Americans and, as such, more of a curiosity than an indispensable part of our country's culture. Like disco a decade earlier, many mainstream experts expected the 'fad' to die out as quickly as it popularized.

Since we know wrestling bookers love to piggyback off popular trends, it was only a matter of time before rap music became a source, and one of WCW's earliest - and cringiest - rap-based gimmicks was that of P.N. News, a dookie chain-sporting babyface. Paul Neu debuted as the more traditional Cannonball Grizzly in the Pacific Northwest in the late '80s, but upon joining WCW in 1991, the Jewish kid from Nebraska was assigned to portray the street-wise News. Neu's in-ring work was mediocre at best as he struggled to get over for about a year before leaving the gimmick - and country - behind.

4 Mike Awesome - Fat Chick Thriller

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The list of inane-to-offensive gimmicks born under Vince Russo's watch in both WWE and WCW is as long as it is hilarious, but in fairness to Russo, the late '90s were very different times. WWE's 'Attitude Era,' of which at least part of its success deservingly gets credited to Russo and writing partner Ed Ferrara, featured plenty of these types of characters, as for every 'Stone Cold' or Rock, there were multiple Beaver Cleavages and Naked Mideons.

Mike Awesome, an impressive big man in his stints in ECW and Japan's FMW, is, unfortunately, best remembered for suffering under two bad gimmicks in WCW - first as the 'Fat Chick Thriller' and later as 'That '70s Guy.' While both have aged poorly (for different reasons), the former was legitimately offensive and is the type of idea that could get somebody fired from a creative team these days.

3 Dungeon Of Doom - Too Cheesy Even For 1995

Earthquake as Shark, Brutus Beefcake as Zodiac, Kamala, Kevin 'Taskmaster' Sullivan and assorted others as WCW's Dungeon of Doom, a villainous faction that often feuded with Hulk Hogan

If Hulk Hogan's '80s babyface act was too corny for 1995, it stands to reason that WCW creative - still trying their best to follow WWE's 'Hulk vs. Monster Heel' playbook - wasn't going to fare much better. Their strategy seemed to be bringing in Hogan's WWE on-screen nemeses - and backstage buddies - like John 'Earthquake/Avalanche/Shark' Tenta, Kamala and Brutus 'Zodiac/etc...' Beefcake and teaming them with longtime heel Kevin Sullivan as the 'Taskmaster' in the Dungeon of Doom.

RELATED: WCW's Dungeon of Doom: The 5 Best (& 5 Worst) Members

However, the characters and vignettes were somehow cheesier than nearly everything that came out of WWE in the '80s. WCW fans, used to the more realism-based, southern NWA style of 'rasslin', roundly rejected the entire presentation.

2 Evad (Dave) Sullivan - Proto-Eugene?

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In 2021, dyslexia is a commonly-recognized learning disability and usually diagnosed in children. The disorder - which affects three million Americans annually - is treatable with the appropriate types of education and support.

In 1994, however, it was the term used to excuse the ridiculous character arc of The Equalizer, a mid-card heel who joined the company the previous year. Now revealed to the world as Kevin Sullivan's (kayfabe) brother - constantly pronouncing his own first name backward as 'Evad' because, after all, he was dyslexic - Dave Sullivan was presented as a child-like Hulkamaniac whose obsession with Hulk Hogan infuriated Kevin. The angle went on for far too long and, in many ways, featured all the same cringey, borderline-offensive elements the Eugene character exhibited in WWE a decade later.

1 Yoshi Kwan - White Guy Playing A Vaguely Asian Guy

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When British wrestler Chris Champion came to WCW in 1993, his prior resume of gimmicks was unimpressive at best. Surely anything would beat donning a green mask and bodysuit as 'Kowabunga,' the world's most-obvious Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle rip-off as he did in the USWA.

However, Champion's worst gimmick - by far - was yet to come, as it was somebody's brilliant idea to dress the Brit up as Yoshi Kwan, complete with eye makeup meant to make him look more... Japanese? Chinese? We're not sure, as it was never really specified, but regardless, even the legendary Harley Race managing couldn't save this dud of a gimmick from being, at best, completely laughable.