The WWE and other wrestling promotions don't always have the best ideas. While their intentions are likely good, they come up with characters, ideas, and stories that absolutely destroy the careers of the wrestlers who try to make them succeed. There are wrestlers like the Shockmaster, Eugene, the Mountie and others who after trying to pull off completely awful gimmicks were never heard from again. Some of these talents had successful careers before and others were trying to make it big in the business, many of whom were excellent talents, but simply couldn't overcome the imagery of their former flops.

In other cases, there are wrestlers who not only succeeded in spite of some terrible ideas, many of them went on to become some of the most successful wrestlers of all time. Some of these wrestlers will be Hall of Famers when all is said and done and if you go back ten to twenty years, you'd never have guessed it based on how their career paths were projecting.

In an effort to see if anything special was required of these particular wrestlers/talents, we're looking at 15 characters who had awful gimmicks. They were so bad that should have been the end of it. Instead, through personality, rebooking or timing, they managed to continue on and have a long and healthy wrestling career.

Who are these 15 wrestlers? Read on a see who we chose as some of the most obvious. Think we missed some? Feel free to leave your comments and add your favourites. There are likely many more who we didn't include here that should have warranted some consideration.

18 Alexa Bliss

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Alexa Bliss has gone through a few transformations in her WWE career, and she only continues to get better and better. She is currently considered one of the top female performers in the company, and is poised to have a long career on top of the heap. However, before she was this intimidating and ruthless "five feet of fury" character that dominates her division, she was known a s a fairy princess. That's right, little miss Bliss once had what may be the least intimidating gimmick of them all, fairy star dust included. She still pulled it off, and managed to turn it into an opportunity, so we are glad everything worked out. That could have easily backfired and ended her push.

17 The Prototype

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When John Cena was getting his feet wet with the WWE, he started out in FCW as "The Prototype". Basically, he was a perfect specimen of what a man should look like. When he debuted on the main roster against Kurt Angle, WWE dropped the name but kept the gimmick. It really wasn't meshing with the WWE Universe and it almost cost him his job.

Finally, he convinced Stephanie McMahon to change his character after dressing like Vanilla Ice on a Halloween special. He became the "Doctor of Thuganomics", wrote his own theme song and started rapping insults at his opponents. It saved his career and he became arguably the most successful WWE Superstar in the history of the company. Imagine what would have happened if that one SmackDown Halloween show hadn't changed everything -- the last twenty years of wrestling would have looked much different.

16 AJ Styles

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Aj Styles is without a doubt one of the most respected wrestlers in WWE, and probably of the last decade. He managed to make his name by being a standout all around the world before WWE signed him and made him one of their top talents. But before he was a household name, AJ styles had to go through some embarrassing gimmicks. This includes at one point playing protege to Ric Flair. That's right, the folks at TNA thought it could be a good idea to have AJ Styles copy one of the greatest wrestlers of all time. Luckily the idea was short lived and didn't have too much impact on Styles' career. But as we've seen with Damien Sandow, it could have easily buried him forever.

15 Glenn Jacobs

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No matter how you look at the Fake Diesel and Fake Razor Ramon gimmicks, on paper, in theory, or in person it was an awful idea that was never going to fly. WWE had just lost Kevin Nash and Scott Hall to WCW, so they had the "bright" idea of picking two other wrestlers to play the old gimmicks. It flopped magnificently.

The wrestler who played Razor vanished but Glenn Jacobs (who played Diesel) eventually became Kane. Kane is/was one of the most popular wrestlers in the last twenty years and he'll definitely get a nod in the Hall of Fame when he finally chooses to retire. Jacobs not only survived one bad gimmick, he also survived a character who was supposed to be a deranged dentist.

14 Braun Strowman

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The most intimidating and dominant force on Monday Night Raw has to be Braun Strowman. In a recent episode, he literally tore down the set while laying waste to Brock Lesnar and Kane. He is as over as can be, and a lot of that has to do with his "monster among men" persona.

But before Braun was this big scary monster, he was actually a big goofball party boy! Yes, Braun Strowman was once a member of Adam Rose's entourage known as the Rosebuds. It is said that Vince McMahon once saw the giant backstage dressed in Rosebud attire and actually asked what the WWE was doing with him. Thankfully nobody paid too much attention and his career was able to take off from there.

13 Deacon Batista

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This entry covers two gimmicks at once because these two stars debuted on SmackDown together. In 2002, the WWE brand split separated The Dudleys and D-Von went to SmackDown where he played a villainous reverend. He later took on a protégé in Deacon Batista and for both wrestlers, the ideas simply weren't good enough to last. The character killed any chance of D-Von having a single's career but he did go back to tag team fame and is going to be inducted into the Hall of Fame this year. Deacon Batista became Batista and a huge success in WWE as part of the faction Evolution. He then became a single's star and eventually a movie star. He'll be a Hall of Famer in the future.

The only thing that could have been worse about the Deacon Batista gimmick was that the original idea was that his origin was described as a "rape child." Thank goodness that one never came to see the light of day.

12 The Ringmaster

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Newer fans to the WWE likely don't know how popular Stone Cold Steve Austin was. Thanks to injuries, he retired far earlier from in-ring competition than he should have, but also thanks to the WWE Network and infrequent appearances on WWE programming, his name lives on. Fans who've been watching WWE for fifteen to twenty years will argue Austin was perhaps the best ever.

Considering he started out as the Ringmaster, there's really no way that should have been possible. The Ringmaster was an apprentice of the Million Dollar Man Ted DiBiase and completely unlike Austin's "Stone Cold" character, he didn't talk, he was supposed to be the best technical wrestler and was somewhat distinguished. It was a gimmick that was such the polar opposite of what made Austin famous, it's amazing WWE even tried it. They should have known better since they'd seen his footage from ECW.

11 Kerwin White

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During the summer of 2005, someone decided that Chavo Guerrero wasn't entertaining enough. Even though he had the lineage of the Guererro family name, WWE decided to turn him into a country-club, slacks-wearing stereotypical Caucasian character.

Kerwin White was terrible from the first moment he debuted in his golf cart and it would have destroyed Chavo's career if not for the untimely death of his uncle Eddie Guererro. The moment Eddie passed away WWE dropped the idea and didn't ask Chavo to play the tasteless gimmick any longer. Chavo had a run after Eddie's passing but eventually left WWE and has since been seen in Impact Wrestling and other promotions. It is possible the Kerwin White gimmick was so ridiculous that Chavo would have made it anyway but WWE has destroyed more promising careers with weaker ideas.

10 Max Moon

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There were rumors that this next gimmick was actually created on paper by the wrestler who first played it but even if Konnan was responsible for Max Moon, WWE kept the gimmick alive and had a lot to do with the design of the suit. The idea was apparently that Max Moon was supposed to be a cyborg from "The Future" but it will forever go down as one of the worst ideas in WWE history.

Fortunately for Konnan, he'd go on to wrestle in WCW and become quite a popular mic-card wrestler who had a lot of fan support. He's still currently a huge name on the Mexican wrestling scene and is part of Impact Wrestling now. Every once and a while there are rumors he might return to WWE but he's got a huge reputation for being hard to work with and WWE doesn't seem too interested in taking on his prima donna attitude.

9 The Spirit Squad

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Dolph Ziggler just recently signed a new contract with WWE. They gave him a half-million raise to basically not go to another wrestling promotion. WWE has no obvious plans to make him a star but they see enough value in what he offers to not let him take his talents elsewhere. It may not be the best situation for a professional wrestler, but it's far from the situation Ziggler was in when he entered WWE.

He first rose to fame as part of a group of male cheerleaders called the Spirit Squad. Everything about the characters should have been a disaster but the WWE actually made the gimmicks entertaining. Ziggler was the best wrestler of the group and there was no chance he'd have long-term success with the character but he was also the only one to transition into another role in WWE.

8 Real Man’s Man Stephen Regal

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He was British Royalty in WCW and one of the more respected wrestlers on the planet. Then he came to WWE and they wanted to shed any signs of his former gimmick so the company dressed Steven Regal as up a man who did everything a "real man" would do. He was a lumberjack and a construction worker among other things.

This gimmick, alongside some trouble with alcohol, almost did Regal in but he was able to salvage both his health and his career by becoming close friends with Vince McMahon and today he is a huge part of NXT and the backstage scene in WWE. He's so beloved in WWE he's likely got a career for life if he wants one. In between those two points in his career, he also became William Regal in WWE and had a good run of a few years as a heel and tag team competitor.

7 Mr America

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Unlike most of the other gimmicks on this list, Mr. America was never meant to be a character that was supposed to survive on its own. It was obvious the person under the mask was Hulk Hogan and the storylines reflected as such. The problem with the gimmick was just how bad an idea it was.

A wrestler who was perhaps the most popular for two characters he created — Hulk Hogan and Hollywood Hogan — WWE thought it was smart to try and take his extremely popular character, which also sold a ton of merchandise and hide him under a mask. It wasn't long after this idea that Hogan left WWE. Hulk Hogan was Hulk Hogan and he's survived much worse (including self-inflicted personal troubles) but Mr. America was a horrible idea that it's amazing Hogan agreed to go along with.

6 Oz

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Kevin Nash understood a very simple truth. WCW had such bad ideas for him, he needed to jump ship to WWE as soon as possible and that's exactly what he did. Nash was trotted out on WCW programming as a seven-foot wizard in the likeness of Oz and knew the writing was on the wall. There was no way anyone was going to take him seriously and this was after other gimmicks that were as bad.

Nash was spotted on tv by Shawn Michaels and Michaels decided he could use him and the WWE offered Nash a deal, Nash asked for his release and he went to WWE, became Diesel and quickly became WWE Champion and one of the biggest stars in the company. Eventually, WCW came back to Nash when his contract in WWE expired. He became a huge part of the WCW overtaking WWE in the ratings and is now a Hall of Famer.

5 Faarooq Asad

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Ron Simmons was a huge star in WCW and in 1996, WWE brought him over. But, instead of living up to the legend of Simmon's being one of the most respected black athletes in wrestling, they threw away all that good publicity away and created Faarooq Asad, a gladiator who wore a black and blue outfit with a strangely shaped helmet. Not to be outdone, he was managed by Sunny.

It was evident early that this was a terrible idea and WWE quickly shortened his name to Farooq and had him join the Nation of Domination. The faction was highly respected and helped spawn the career of one of the best wrestlers in WWE history - the Rock. Farooq went onto to tag team success as part of the APA with JBL and coined the phrase "Damn!" which is still insanely popular with fans today.

4 3MB

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The WWE will often throw talents together when they're not sure what to do with them. This happened with enhancement talents Jinder Mahal, Heath Slater and Drew MacIntyre. The group was never going to be taken seriously and clearly grouped to fail. In fact, these three were talents most unlike Rockstars pretending to be rock stars and it should have spelled the end of it for all three wrestlers.

Mahal and McIntyre were eventually released but both have since made strong comebacks with Mahal being the WWE Champion for almost a year and McIntyre winning the NXT Title. Meanwhile, Heath Slater has become one of WWE's most famous and popular enhancement talents. It's a good thing because he's got a wife and kids to feed and a double-wide!

3 Dean Douglas

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Dean Douglas (Shane Douglas) wasn't able to salvage his wrestling career in WWE but he did end up going to ECW, becoming the first-ever ECW champion and putting that company on the map in terms of being an alternative to WCW and WWE. For a while, Douglas was one of the most over and controversial wrestlers in the industry. Today, even though he's an interesting person, he was seen as a revolutionary.

That said, the Dean Douglas gimmick was awful. He was a strict teacher who was educating fans and other wrestlers about everything wrestling and many things not. It was the type of gimmick people loved to hate but it had no long-term future. When you consider that Douglas somehow got on the bad side of The Kliq, the writing was on the wall and his tenure in WWE ended rather quickly.

2 Aldo Montoya

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Aldo Montoya (the Man O War) was actually a man named Peter Joseph Polaco who later became famous as Justin Credible in ECW and WWE. When he arrived for the first time in the then WWF, he was a Portuguese character that looked like he had a yellow jockstrap around his face. This was at a time the WWF was really going all in on "characters" and had wrestlers like Mantaur, Duke "The Dumpster" Drose and others getting a lot of the spotlight. His gimmick should never have worked and it really didn't.

But, Palaco went to ECW and Paul Heyman gave him a chance. He wound up as part of a tag team with Lance Storm called the Impact Players and eventually became their world champion. He made his way back to WWE and while he wasn't much more than an enhancement talent he had a lot of good years. He's not doing so well now with some real drug and alcohol issues on his plate but he did have a good run for a few years.

1 Rocky Maivia

Rocky Maivia

When you consider just how big a star Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson has gone on to become, you'd have to look twice when realizing he started his wrestling career as a gimmick as bad as Rocky Maivia. He was a third-generation star that was pushed as the babyface of all babyfaces. WWE fans hated that he was forced on them and to make matter worse, he was dressed in blue tassels and had a strange weaved hairstyle. He was told to always smile and was deemed the blue-chip athlete who was born into success.

He was greeted with chants of "Rocky sucks". For any normal person, this would have spelled doom and it was so bad he had to go to WWE and request a change. He joined the Nation of Domination, eventually became its leader and took over WWE as the most over star in a company full of huge named talents.