It is a fundamental part of the WWE landscape that wrestlers change gimmicks over time. Sometimes it’s a complete character overhaul like Husky Harris completely reinventing himself as Bray Wyatt. Other times, it is more a matter of a personality change like The Undertaker retaining his name while evolving from zombie to dark overlord to biker across the 1990s. Gimmick changes can offer an opportunity to freshen a character and avoid stagnation. Other times, it’s a way for a worker to find him or herself because a character can be every bit as important as pure talent in the ring when it comes to connecting with an audience and building a career.
One of the awkward parts of changes to gimmick after a star has already appeared on WWE main roster television is having to explain the shift or, more often hope that the fan en masse don’t notice it's the same person beneath the character, or forget about it because they’re into the new gimmick enough to put the old name and persona behind them. Still in today’s wrestling world, however the fans tend to have longer memories, aided by an Internet that facilitates reading up on a worker’s background and connecting the dots, even if someone has developed a new look.
This article takes a look at twenty gimmicks WWE has tried out in the recent past that they already wish fans would forget about. Whether the original idea was embarrassing, or simply inconsistent with the new character, these are the ones WWE management by and large regrets.
20 Braun Strowman: A Wyatt Follower
Braun Strowman is the Monster Among Men—a dominant face who may well be in line to take over as the top star on Raw in Roman Reigns’s absence. Today, Braun Strowman is the Monster Among Men—a dominant face who may well be in line to take over as the top star on Raw in Roman Reigns’s absence. WWE would prefer we not remember the popular star’s role when he debuted, as a monstrous addition to the Wyatt Family.
Strowman purports to have learned a lot in real life under Wyatt’s mentorship, so that time was probably good for him. As a character, though, it’s an awkward period for WWE to now account for. WWE would prefer we not remember the popular star’s role when he debuted, as a monstrous addition to the Wyatt Family.
19 Jason Jordan: Son Of Kurt Angle
Now and again, WWE rolls the dice on rebooting an established wrestler in a very different high profile role. While Jason Jordan didn’t change his name or really try to hide his past, the tag team standout took on a new trajectory as Kurt Angle’s estranged son.The gimmick never got over that well with fans, and before it could be fully realized, Jordan went out with a career threatening injury.
Given the limited success of the gimmick, and the fact that Jordan didn’t wind up having time to fully take advantage of it anyway. We wonder if WWE will even bring it up again if Jordan is able to return.
18 Matt Hardy: Woken
Matt Hardy struck a unique chord in Impact Wrestling with the discovery of his oddball Broken Universe. The gimmick got over huge with a segment of open minded fans and helped make him and his brother Jeff one of the hottest acts on the indies for a spell to follow.
The Hardys returned to WWE with little sign of their Broken characters, in part due to intellectual property issues with Impact. However, when Impact leadership turned over and the coast was clear, and when Jeff was out injured, Matt got to experiment with playing Woken.
The gimmick had its moments, including Hardy’s last showdown with Bray Wyatt at the Hardy compound. However, WWE never seemed entirely comfortable with it and it was an awkward fit for their more mainstream product. Hardy has seemingly retired from the ring now, making it a very strange coda to his years with WWE.
17 Aiden English: Vaudevillain
NXT is fertile ground for wrestlers to develop distinctive characters. The Vaudevillians tag team was fun enough and got over in developmental. However, upon their call up to Monday Night Raw, they immediately felt a bit out of place for the over the top nature of their gimmick.
Simon Gotch wound up exiting WWE before long and Aiden English has made the most of his opportunities, particularly as Rusev’s sidekick. His roots with the campy tag team are tough to explain, though, and best left forgotten in WWE’s book. Now, it's a question of maximizing Aiden's potential as a singles star.
16 Nia Jax: Stand-Up Hero
WWE has strategically positioned Nia Jax against Ronda Rousey for two programs to date. That’s not so much on account of Jax’s star power or advance skill level between the ropes. No, Nia is a natural opponent for Rousey by sheer virtue of her size. Her height, weight, and strength make her one of the very few women on the roster WWE fans could believe standing a chance in a fight with the Baddest Woman on the Planet.
It’s awkward, though, that while she plays a monster heel against Rousey, her size was a key factor in a storyline as recently as this spring, when she bravely stood up for herself against mean girl Alexa Bliss when Alexa made fun of her for how she looked.
15 Erick Rowan: Genius
The Wyatt Family was in no small part built to get Bray Wyatt over as a major star, but it also introduced fans to Luke Harper and Erick Rowan as stars in their own right. In one break between stints as a unit, Harper and Rowan found themselves on opposite sides. Harper was a heel character not far removed from his persona in the faction.
Rowan took a further leap, though, playing a face whinny WWE hinted may be a genius in throwaway moments like him quickly solving a Rubik’s Cube. The gimmick never went anywhere and Rowan returned to the Wyatts without explanation. His current persona as half of the Bludgeon Brothers may be a bit removed from his character as a Wyatt, but those differences are easy enough to dismiss relative to the bizarre turns in his face gimmick.
14 Primo And Epico: Los Matodores
There are few name value talents who have stayed under contract as long and been as underused as Primo and Epico. They’re kin to Hall of Famer Carlos Colon, as well as bigger star Carlito, but have festered for years now in a tag team that can scarcely get time on Raw or SmackDown. The most embarrassing attempt at making something out of the team was their stint as Los Matadores.
It’s both telling that hey overshadowed by their little mascot El Torito, and that their most memorable program was opposite 3MB, with a little man of their own in Hornswoggle, in a curtain jerking comedy feud.
13 TJP: Video Game Inspired Face
Today, TJP is a heel on 205 Live, which is probably the best platform for him as a smaller, more technically savvy wrestler who would risk getting lost in the shuffle on Raw or SmackDown. His more serious character is the antithesis of the gimmick WWE first attached to him, as a video game loving face with video game inspired entrance music.
Fresh off a star making run in winning the Cruiserweight Classic, the gimmick didn’t do much to help the mainstream audience take him seriously as the face of the rebooted Cruiserweight division. He can only hope he'll strike gold with a gimmick that works perfectly.
12 Emma: Emmalina
Emma was one of the brightest female stars in NXT and there’s a very reasonable argument to be made that she and Paige planted the seeds for the Women’s Revolution with their brilliant matches in developmental. Unfortunately, Emma persistently struggled on the main roster. First she was a goofy dancing face and sidekick to Santino Marella, then as a heel she spent most of her time lost in the shuffle, injured, or in the process of rebooting her character.
Rebranded as Emmalina, she was to be a throwback diva character, but WWE management pulled the plug on the new gimmick, purportedly because they didn’t feel Emma was committed enough to it. Based in the vignettes, Emmalina would've fit awkwardly in the Women’s Revolution era anyway, and WWE would just as soon have us forget the whole thing.
11 Sheamus: King Of The Ring
Sheamus has been a mainstay on WWE’s main roster for nearly a decade now. A part of his longevity comes down to his ability to adapt between face and heel roles, and when his time as a singles star had grown stale, embracing his tag team partnership with Cesaro.
There was a point when the Celtic Warrior really struggled, though. Winning the King of the Ring tournament is traditionally a big career booster, but the old fashioned royal gear Sheamus wore for the months to follow came across as comically anachronistic, particularly relative to his his arch-rival of the day, John Morrison.
10 Carmella: Enzo And Big Cass’s Valet
Carmella has been that oddball talent who was never really a star in NXT, but broke out on the main roster. Between her run as Ms. Money in the Bank, her title reign, and recent fun work with R-Truth, she has been an unlikely success story.
Carmella has humbler beginnings in developmental, however, where her biggest claim to fame was playing the valet to Enzo Amore and Big Cass. It’s ironic that she outlasted either man on the main roster, and pretty undeniably has enjoyed a greater record of kayfabe accomplishments. Given the manner in which Enzo and Cass were released, it's unlikely the WWE would want to draw much attention to Carmella's on-screen past as a valet.
9 Akira Tozawa: Titus Worldwide Recruit
Akira Tozawa is a respected aerial artist on the 205 Live brand, and one of the strongest in ring performers the show has to offer. When the Cruiserweights were still on Raw, Tozawa May have had more opportunities to win over mainstream fans. However, he also got saddled with the unenviable task of working with the Titus Worldwide stable.
The face faction has never enjoyed a meaningful push, and has always felt awkward for player-coach Titus O’Neil both standing so much taller than the acts he’s managing, and being so poor when he steps in the ring. Tozawa is now far better off on his own.
8 Lana: Dolph Ziggler's Associate
Over the course of her first year on the WWE main roster, Lana evolved from Rusev’s largely robotic heel valet to a more fully rounded character and occasionally wrestling her own matches.
Along the way, there’s the awkward matter of Lana’s brief fracturing from The Brute when she kayfabe dated Dolph Ziggler and backed him against the heel Rusev. The angle came to an abrupt end when Lana and Rusev broke kayfabe with a social media post.
WWE seemingly recognized how complicated it would be to reconcile this real world development with their storyline, besides seeing that Lana’s face character wasn’t getting over that well. WWE wound up ignoring months of storylines in putting Rusev and Lana back together on screen without any real explanation.
7 Bo Dallas: Motivational Speaker
Bo Dallas is a talented wrestler and a hard worker with a family lineage behind him. However, whether he was playing an underdog face, a Social Outcast, a cronie for The Miz, or half of The B-Team, he has persistently struggled to get over with WWE main roster fans.
In some ways, the faux motivational speaker, deluded character that brought Dallas to the top of NXT marked his best shot at mainstream appeal. In the end, though, it felt more cheesy than compelling on the main roster, and WWE would prefer we forget that they ever tried to get him over as a serious contender.
6 Curtis Axel: Better Than Perfect
Curtis Axel is not only a well respected mechanic, but a third generation star and the son of all time great Curt Hennig. Unfortunately, Axel has never demonstrated the it factor necessary to make it as a top guy in WWE.
Now that Axel has spent most of the last few years various comedic roles, it’s a bit embarrassing for WWE to have fans remember that they did try to push him as an elite talent. With Paul Heyman as his manager, Axel claimed victories over John Cena and Triple H, among others, that are totally incongruent with his trajectory to follow.
5 Dana Brooke: Charlotte Flair’s Sidekick
In Dana Brooke, WWE had a captivating athlete who was still a little green as an all around professional wrestling performer. Teaming her up with Charlotte Flair during her original heel run on the main roster was a sensible enough choice. It functioned in the tradition of better established acts giving rookies the rub and some mentorship while the young talent serves as a heater to give a logical reason for the heel to win and for fans to boo her.
However, given where each woman would be three years later, that partnership that looked as though it might have been headed for an eventual rivalry feels pretty bizarre. Flair is one of the top female stars, recently turned heel again after a lengthy face run on SmackDown. Brooke remains a lower card act on Raw, a face now with no clear direction since splintering from Titus Worldwide.
4 Cesaro: Yodeler
It’s not unusual for WWE to experiment with a few different gimmicks for a new talent, and particularly ones whom rumors suggest some people in management are behind while others (including Vince McMahon) are less certain. Cesaro is an incredible athlete who has connected with fans for his toughness and ability to function in a no nonsense style. It’s forgivable that WWE would try a lot of different things with him before arriving at his current partnership with Sheamus.
Having the man yodel his way to the ring is a very tough sell, though, that probably would have undermined any talent who had to do it. Cesaro was a company man who did what he was told, but there’s an argument to be made that any main event ambitions he may have had died with that uninspired gimmick.
3 David Otunga: The Next Rock
When David Otunga first debuted via the original NXT show, before it was a full-fledged developmental brand, his introductory vignettes were captivating. They emphasized not only Otunga’s herculean physique, but his gift for gab and credentials including his law degree from Harvard and his celebrity marriage with Jennifer Hudson.
Otunga was presented as a star and a lot of pundits were quick to draw connections between what we saw and heard from him to A-list predecessor The Rock. Unfortunately, Otunga never really connected with fans on the mic and turned out to be an incredibly awkward worker between the ropes. WWE has kept him on contract, if only because his law school credentials reflect well on the company. He is now relegated to a pre-show panelist role, a far cry from the breakout star WWE once seemed intent on making him.
2 Paige: Leader Of Absolution
After a long, awkward spell off WWE television while she recovered from injury and neck surgery, along with encountering personal issues along the way, Paige made what looked to be a triumphant return to Raw. She was positioned as the leader of the new Absolution faction, leading young heels Mandy Rose and Sonya Deville.
Sadly, Paige sustained a career ending injury just months after she came back. After an emotional retirement speech on the Raw after WrestleMania, WWE surprised fans by slotting her as the new face GM of SmackDown. Paige has done well in this role, despite it coming across as completely inconsistent with the villainous character she played leading up to that moment. WWE would just as soon have fans forget about that few month stint with a gimmick that didn’t have time to go anywhere.
1 Bray Wyatt: Matt Hardy’s Sidekick
While WWE would probably, first and foremost, have us all forget that Bray Wyatt debuted on the main roster as Husky Harris, a Nexus underling, his most recent on screen gimmick doesn’t hold up much better. After a meandering feud with a newly Woken Matt Hardy, Wyatt re-debuted as a sidekick to his recent rival. The two wound winning the Raw Tag Team Championship together, in what was arguably the beginning of that division’s sharp decline. There have been reports of Wyatt rebooting and either going back to his cult leading heel persona, or getting a shot as an upper card face. In either case, his lower card run with Hardy is an awkward hiccup WWE seems intent on letting fans forget about before they move forward.